Inspire the digital design community to engage with Airbnb at a global fair that’s primarily recognized for physical design.
BACKGROUND
As Airbnb continues to expand across its app–from Experiences to Homes, Transportation to print and untraditional spaces–it becomes increasingly important that our Design team blends digital and offline environments to create a more seamless travel journey. To bring the digital and physical design communities together, our focus at London Design Festival was on demonstrating how to blend both spectrums of the practice together in a way that feels cohesive, organic, and human instead of creepy, disconnected, and dystopian.
Solution
We hosted a “From Pixel to Place” experiential event that explored the role design plays in blending digital and offline environments in art, retail, and travel featuring thought leaders across both spectrums within design. To reinforce the narrative in the space, we staged the conversation within an immersive and participatory environment of blended digital and physical installations (inspired by stories from Airbnb Magazine). I selected five travel stories from different cities–Hong Kong, Capetown, Costa Rica, Copenhagen and New York–to bring to life in the space. Each story had gone through our blended content ecosystem to align with the theme. They were available in our app as a bookable offline experience and had previously been featured in the magazine.
I selected It’s Nice That–one of the UK’s most respected creative publications–and Bompas & Parr–an unconventional experiential agency–as our media and production partners. From a Danish Karaoke booth and live-scored speaker panel to a Capetonian-inspired radical flavor quest accompanied by dim sum service, there was something playful and unexpected for every attendee to engage with derived from the pages of the magazine. Read the event case study I wrote for Airbnb.Design.
Sample results
Buzz: Featured on the top 20 events list for London Design Festival and an exclusive post-event recap in It’s Nice That
Attendance: The event had a 157% attendance rate in a new market, substantial waitlist, and positioned Airbnb as a creative hiring beacon in a new territory
Partnerships: Follow up partnership requests and collaborations from publications like Dezeen.
Core team:
Meredith Schomburg (Design), Andrea Nguyen (Exhibit Design), Anne Diaz (Research) and Sarah Goerzen (Production)
My role:
Project lead and Strategy
Other Experiential Works
