Is it good marketing to antagonize your biggest rival, perhaps by placing a mocking ad right outside their door?
That’s what Vrbo has done. It erected a billboard outside Airbnb’s San Francisco HQ that reads, “Think of us as Airbnb’s hotter, cooler, friendlier, long-lost twin that never has hosts.”
Cheeky…
… but well-received? Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky posted a photo of the ad with a laughing emoji to social media, but Airbnb provided a statement to Business Insider saying Vrbo had spent millions on ads “as confused as they are desperate.”
Actually, that’s a good point. Vrbo is the underdog, holding 9% short-term-rental market share in 2024 compared to Airbnb’s 44%, and its ad could read as though Vrbo is bitter about not having anyone to host its properties.
But that’s not the case
A Vrbo spokesperson said the campaign was meant to address “common frustrations” travelers experience not just with Airbnb, but the vacation rental industry, such as “awkward encounters” in shared spaces.
Vrbo typically rents whole homes, which are less likely to have on-site hosts. Other billboards in other markets highlight Vrbo’s model, such as an NYC billboard that reads, “Want a family-friendly villa you can’t find on Airbnb?”
Advertising expert Ashely Rutstein told BI that Vrbo’s misses the mark, because while customers have plenty of complaints about Airbnb — for example, chores — users can find host-free options on the platform.
Comparative ads…
… aren’t new, even for Vrbo, which has targeted Airbnb in its ads before.
Such ads often work when brands lean on well-known frustrations and provide a valuable alternative — or when they’re at least clever and funny.
- Jaguar (before its weird rebrand) released an ad featuring a jaguar hunting a chicken in response to a Mercedes commercial that used a chicken to demonstrate its “Magic Body Control” suspension system.
- Samsung dropped a commercial mocking Apple’s loathed ad depicting a hydraulic press crushing creative objects into an iPad. It featured a woman playing guitar while reading music from her Samsung tablet. The tagline? “Creativity cannot be crushed.”
- Popeye’s saw major traffic after adding a chicken sandwich to its menu, launching the “chicken sandwich wars” with Chick-fil-A. One Popeye’s ad poked fun at Chick-fil-A for being closed on Sundays.
Here’s a fun ad: Hilton, depicting a vacation rental as a creepy haunted house… with weird rules.
