Airbnb, a San Francisco-based online hospitality company, has selected Toronto-based North Strategic to handle its PR and social media work.
Founded in 2008, Airbnb allows hosts to rent their homes, apartments and spare rooms to travellers from around the world. The company recently set up shop in Canada, hiring Aaron Zifkin, former senior VP of global business development at Artez Interactive, as country manager.
North was named PR agency of record after a competitive review in August. “We wanted an agency that could portray and reflect our core values as an organization, which are to create a sense of belonging, be a great storyteller and create authentic and personal travel experiences,” said Zifkin. “So we wanted an agency that really encapsulated all of those values and would be able to communicate all of those values to the Canadian marketplace.”
Airbnb and North will work to build brand awareness in Canada, both among travellers and potential hosts. “Trying to build up the number of hosts in the [Canadian] market is something that [Airbnb] is focused on,” said Sarah Stewart-Browne, VP at North Strategic.
“We have an incredibly passionate group of users, hosts and guests around the world,” added Zifkin. “We want to get their stories out about how incredible their travel experiences are on Airbnb.”
Because of the nature of Airbnb’s business, North will also provide guidance on municipal policies. In some markets, many transactions that take place on sites like Airbnb are technically illegal. For example, in New York, it is illegal to rent out a residential space for less than 30 days.
In the review process, Zifkin “underscored that an ability to manage and understand issues as they pertain to policy was going to be a big focus,” said Stewart-Browne.
Airbnb currently has more than 600,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries.
