

Ask HN: Are the insides of Airbnb listings being commercialized? - jasonbarone

I recently stayed with Airbnb and had a fun conversation with the host regarding his past experiences. Does anyone know, or has anyone seen listings being used to promote products or services?<p>I guess the examples would be product placement, bathroom samples, posters, painted wall murals, magnets of real estate agents, fashion, etc.<p>I love Airbnb but my gut says this is inevitable and I&#x27;m curious if anyone has seen this happening yet...
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nate
Related: I had a Lyft ride recently where the driver the entire ride was
trying to sell me health and life insurance. And he had clearly done this
before and it was all part of his ride. He had a stack of cards right there on
his dash ready with his pitch.

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seanmccann
I'm sure this is against the terms of service for drivers. I recently asked a
Lyft driver about in car ads that's what he told me. The reason we were
talking about it was because he had his car wrapped with a Desk.com ad. He
said he got $100 to put it on until the campaign expires.

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nate
Yeah, and if it's not, it should be. It was a very uncomfortable ride. I take
Lyft because it's so much friendlier and cleaner than cabs, but that ride had
the opposite effect.

On another tangent though, being a Lyft driver might be be a great place for
some folks trying to get consumer feedback on startup ideas. I was approached
by three guys yesterday in front of a cafe asking if they could ask me 3
questions about a lean startup idea. Unfortunately my wife and I were on a
walk with our newborn, and trying just to get home before another newborn
eruption.

But that car ride would be a great place to engage in conversation about
startup ideas and problems the passengers experience without making it a sales
pitch.

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AVTizzle
Where do you live? Both these scenarios sound like cringeworthy scenes from
Silicon Valley (the HBO version).

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nate
Chicago. :) The Lyft scenario was definitely cringeworthy. The lean startup
questions outside the cafe weren't. I think it was good hustle and effort.
They weren't pushy at all and handled "no, need to get baby back home" very
well. They could probably change a few things to get a better reply rate on
the street, and I wanted to help, it was just bad timing.

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nichodges
I was messaged by a local business owner, asking if I'd be interested in
putting his product in my listing photos, mentioning the business in the
listing, and also in my "welcome to the apartment" notes for visitors.

Next time I was in his shop I told him I really don't rent the place out
enough for it to be worthwhile, but asked him how the response from other
people he messaged was. He said one woman was really angry in her message
back, and a few others took him up on the offer. To be honest the ROI for him
wouldn't be great, especially given many of the customers from AirBnB won't be
returning.

If it is against AirBnB's terms and they take issue with it I can only imagine
the irony-laden field day the media would have.

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mcintyre1994
This is actually an interesting idea and not necessarily bad for the
experience. If a place had certain demographics Sony or Microsoft could offer
a free new console around/before release. Special feature for host to offer,
bonus for guest, seems like a solid path to a sale for the company. It seems
that could possibly work for other things too, and it'd surely be more
interesting to advertisers than a typical hotel.

I guess the big thing is visitors probably aren't returning so local
businesses aren't going to get much success- but I can see interesting
opportunities for less location constrained companies. What if Netflix gave a
free account to a chunk of places with certain demographics?

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charlesdm
Not direct promotion for products or services, but I rented an apt once from a
luxury real estate developer. He told about some of the projects he was
working on. Pretty impressive. We've actually become good friends.

~~~
jasonbarone
I guess if someone had experience, or was trained well, they could potentially
be selling without coming across as selling. Like you rent from a real estate
agent and he's sort of running through the typical questions in a
conversational manner...

For instance, I just stayed with someone who manages music events and does
promotion for bands. If I needed someone for those services in that area,
that's my go-to guy because he came off knowledgeable and friendly.

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bin1
Here is a good example:
[https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/72229](https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/72229)

~~~
jasonbarone
Hah, well that's blatant. I was thinking more of things like listings that had
products conveniently placed or highlighted in the photos/description.

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dominotw
>has anyone seen listings being used to promote products or services?

Yes . For prostitution. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/prostitutes-
renting...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/prostitutes-renting-
airbnb-apartments_n_5147910.html)

