
Airbnb's ads make them fools in national news - edward
http://www.sfexaminer.com/airbnbs-ads-make-them-fools-in-national-news/
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mhink
What were they even trying to accomplish? I can't even figure out a way to
look at these ads that could explain how they would possibly result in any
positive result for AirBnB.

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sperling75
They focused on themselves (what the city could do with their money) rather
than the people voting and what mattered to the voters. Really terrible ad
fail. Worst this year.

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goldfeld
Jesus christ, what a bunch of self-absorbed assholes at the top vetting
something like this.

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test_account_
Does anyone have a guess as to how they hoped people would read this?

Surely they imagined it communicating something other than "we're mad we had
to pay our taxes".

~~~
eli
I guess it was just supposed to tap into general anti-tax (or anti-government)
sentiment. I think you were supposed to read it as, "these tax dollars aren't
going to benefit you directly" or "the government is going to waste the
windfall from this tax so they don't deserve it."

Hard to say for sure. It's a pretty terrible ad on many levels. Even if I were
sympathetic to the message, it seems like it would be a bad idea to remind me
about the tax-funded things I enjoy when I'm deciding on a tax.

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callesgg
I would not say fools.

This is actually great for them they didn't actually do anything bad(like
dumping oil or stuff like that), so people wont care in a month or so and the
news media gives them a toon of publicity.

AKA all publicity is good publicity.

~~~
jonny_eh
It probably cost them prop F though.

~~~
__jal
Yep. This was astonishingly dumb. As an acquaintance (I live in San Francisco)
said, "Any time a corporation dumps that much money into a local issue, I'm
voting against them." I think a lot of people are coming to that viewpoint
now.

Which, whatever one thinks of AirBnB, not terribly great. The proposition,
ISTM, has problems that are likely to have unpleasant repercussions mostly
unrelated to the company/service/local housing issues.

~~~
crazy1van
> "Any time a corporation dumps that much money into a local issue, I'm voting
> against them." I think a lot of people are coming to that viewpoint now.

If a critical mass of people come to this point of view, that will be the end
of corporate lobbying on these type of issues. However, most issues have
different corporations dumping money on each side of the issue which makes
that theory hard to follow.

Also, I really don't have a problem with companies dumping money into an issue
that they feel is a threat to their future existence. If they didn't try to
persuade people on the issue, they would be doing a disservice to their
employees and investors.

~~~
__jal
I wasn't asserting a value judgement on the viewpoint, only noting the seeming
popularity of it.

Yes, narrowly construed, corporate officers have obligations that look a
something like that. I look at it as an activity that takes place in the
broader world of policy making. Personally, I think to judge the cost or
benefit of corporate lobbying as a driver of policy requires substantially
more investigation than simply whether or not they are properly representing
their stakeholders.

"For all lawful purposes" covers a range of behaviours that many folks have a
problem with, those employees and investors also have voices, votes and the
ability to spend money whether or not the corporation does, the supposed
alignment of interested between corporate officers, investors and employees
really isn't there in many cases of corporate lobbying (unions exist for a
reason, for instance, and so to shareholder lawsuits), game theoretic concerns
about what it does to democracy, and on and on.

None of which really matters to the analysis that AirBnB really comes off like
a nest of entitled jackasses with this ad and turned off a lot of people who
may well have been otherwise sympathetic to the notion that this proposition
has some really bad provisions. If I were a stakeholder, I'd likely be
thinking that the officers did me a disservice by spending a ton of money to
convince lots of people vote against my hypothetical interests.

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kornish
Have we verified that it was actually AirBnb who posted these ads? There's
information floating around which indicates that the ad creators were actually
an anti-AirBnb party and were well aware of how offensive and tone deaf the
advertisements were/are. [1]

However, it's hard to tell if that's just AirBnb covering itself in light of
the negative public reception.

[1]:
[https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100700506082939&se...](https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100700506082939&set=a.626401026109.2203111.94803916&type=3&theater)

EDIT: after poking around a bit more, looks like it is AirBnb. There are a few
quotes about the advertisements from a spokesperson here:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-takes-down-san-
francis...](http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-takes-down-san-francisco-
ads-2015-10)

~~~
simonw
The fact that so many people thought is was a hoax is an amazing illustration
of how terrible these ads were.

~~~
eevilspock
_> “What a colossal mistake,” Ross said. “I think it’s one of those things
that reinforces everything bad about the tech industry, and about Airbnb, that
people feel.”_

And when tech people respond by thinking this must be an anti-tech conspiracy,
they're further reinforcing the feeling.

