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The Covid-19 lock downs were a dark time for the hospitality industry, yet they provided Airbnb with a light bulb moment. Before the pandemic, Airbnb spent most of its advertising budget on paid search. This spend was cut in 2020 but the number of clicks from search returned to 90% of historic levels before paid search was re-started. This triggered a seismic change to Airbnb’s advertising strategy. Since 2020, Airbnb has devoted less than 10% of its advertising spend on paid search, focusing instead on brand-building activity via PR, TV. CTV and social media. In an interview, founder of Airbnb Brian Chesky mentions a cool metaphor used by co-founder Joe Gebbia. It's important to combine brand building activity that 'lights up the whole room’ like a chandelier with performance marketing 'lasers' (or spotlights in my illustration) that focus on a corner of the room, representing immediate business priorities. Chesky also refers to flash bulbs but does not explain this metaphor - so I have made my own interpretation. Big-splash marketing campaigns can dazzle customers for a short time (like a flash bulb), but don’t have much effect in the long term.