Many companies have had to deal with serious public relations campaign issues in this past year but I found that the most interesting and probably one of the most brilliant campaign launches was done by Airbnb when they launched their new logo in July 2017.
Their new logo was supposed to symbolize a world where anyone could belong anywhere but the new logo was compared to several different animals, car parts, body parts, and more. Airbnb was prepared for the backlash and they dealt with it by launching a humorous infographic featuring the different designs that people came up with showing that even the “parody” logos aligned with Airbnb’s brand message that anyone and everyone could make Airbnb anything they wanted.
I think this is a great example of how public relations can be used to turn a bad situation into something good. Thousands of people were making fun of a design that Airbnb had been curating and instead of trying to fight the backlash they let their consumers make their brand message more effective. By accepting the parody logo designs Airbnb showed their values of “acceptance”, “belonging”, and they drove the message of “#belonganywhere” through the negativity. If they had gone a different direction and tried to defend themselves and their decisions by scorning those who made fun of the designs, I think they would have lost many of their followers. Their humor in the face of antagonism made their brand more readily acceptable and trustworthy. Airbnb strengthened the relationships between their brand and their consumer by allowing creativity to flood into their campaign.
Resources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28343130
https://augure.launchmetrics.com/resources/blog/communication-campaign-examples
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