The Airbnb case study in product marketing

And when you join a club, don't order Pizza Hut

Hello Gobbledeers,

How’s it going? One quick ask: If you write a Substack and you like Gobbledy (or if you hate it with a passion…that’s fine too), would you mind recommending this publication? Substack recommendations drive a bunch of subscribers. And who doesn’t want a bunch of subscribers?

Today we’ll be discussing:

• A $40,000 club membership that includes a free pizza

• A terrible product detail page

• A great campaign from Airbnb

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The $40,000 Pizza Hut Pizza

Yes, we talk quite a bit about tech stuff here, but there’s so much non-tech stuff that I think the readers of this thing would like. So with your permission…(also without your permission):

Here in New York City - you might be aware - there are many restaurants. Like, many many restaurants. All manner of restaurants. Like 7 restaurants. Or 8.

And when there’s a market that’s full of restaurants you have a few ways of standing out:

1. You can be super cheap.

2. You can do one thing incredibly well, and not worry about price.

3. You can be incredibly original.

4. You can be super high-end.

(That’s probably not an exhaustive list.)

In that high end, there are lots of ways to play that game. There are restaurants that are super warm and welcoming. There are restaurants that make you feel like you’re a pathetic loser for even trying to get in.

And then there are restaurants that aren’t really a restaurant at all, but more of a dining room of a club.

All of which is to say: the company that owns NYC’s Carbone, the stupidly-overpriced-celebrity-hangout-for-regular-Italian-food-except-that-veal-parmasean-is-$89, has recently created a membership club for people who like to spend $89 on veal parm, but sometimes want to go to a different restaurant.

Well, you might be thinking, that seems reasonable. How much could a club possibly cost? $5,000? $10,000?

Close. It costs $30,000 for a starting level membership and $10,000 in annual dues.

Why am I even talking about this?

Because I loved/hated/hated-immensely this piece of information from a New Yorker article about the restaurant inside the club:

One of the club’s restaurants is Carbone Privato, a souped-up version of the original, which I visited as a guest. Amid a circus of tableside preparations—servers theatrically shaking Martinis and flambéing cherries—diners sized up one another, eyes darting around the room suspiciously. An especially anointed few slunk over to the Founders’ Room, where a “culinary concierge” will arrange for the kitchen to prepare anything a member desires; recent requests, according to the club’s director, have included a faithful re-creation of a Pizza Hut pie.

So there’s a club that costs $30,000 + $10,000 annually, and inside that club is a restaurant called Carbone Privato (Italian for ‘sadly lacking self-worth’), and inside that restaurant is the Founders’ Room where a “culinary concierge” (Italian for “person who will have to listen to assholes all day long”) will go ask a chef to prepare “a faithful re-creation of a Pizza Hut pie.”

A faithful recreation of a faithful recreation of a Pizza Hut pizza. In a club. Thanks, Bing.

I have thought so much about that last line. “A faithful re-creation of a Pizza Hut pie.” Because typically one would need a “re-creation” of something that no longer exists. Like if maybe your grandmother (as mine did) came here as a teenager from Poland, and she used to cook me cheese kreplach (like a dumpling), and my grandmother passed away before sharing with any of my family how she made it, and I can no longer get that, but somehow I spent $40,000 for Carbone Privato and somehow again I was “anointed” into the Founders’ Room and asked the Culinary Concierge if the chef could whip me up some cheese kreplach like my grandmother made, and out they came, crispy dough with sweet cheese inside, I would say - “wow, that was a faithful re-creation of my grandmother’s cheese kreplach!”

And somehow that’s not even my actual favorite part of the story. My favorite part of the story is that the “club’s director” thought it would for some reason be valuable to tell a reporter that some doofus who plunked down $30,000 + $10,000 to be a club member would actually ask someone to prepare him a Pizza Hut pizza, and that that would reflect well on any single person involved in this tale.

And also, WHY DIDN’T THE GUY JUST ORDER A PIZZA FROM PIZZA HUT??????

Y’know what gets people to take a meeting with you? Gifts!

If you read Gobbledy last week, you may have noticed that the fine folks* at gifting platform Postal decided to support our efforts and sponsor this newsletter.

(*I believe in honesty in advertising - it was one folk.)

And there were two reasons Postal did that:

1. Because they needed more MQLs. Or SQLs. Possibly SALs. I don’t know. I didn’t ask them how they measure their funnel.

2. Because I actually DO think that sending prospects gifts gets them to engage with you or your sales team.

What’s Postal? Good question. Postal is a gifting platform that helps modernize the old-school, effective art of making an impression through corporate gifts and experiences.

Postal was kind enough to come back for a second week, and they want to give you your “first taste of Postal” by sending you a fun gift box, no strings attached*.

(*Well, actually there are a few strings. They’re the same strings as last week - but that didn’t stop a bunch of you from deciding you wanted to learn more about Postal - you should! Anyway, they want 30 minutes of your time to show you why Postal is better than whatever you’re using now to send things (think corporate gifts, wine, food, or any of those “cool” branded items your CEO wants you to make that are sitting in the back of your utility closet).

And if you’re NOT using anything to send gifts, you’re in for a treat when you see how easy Postal makes it to send gifts.

GET YOUR DEMO OF POSTAL AND A FREE GIFT

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This Is a Bad Product Detail Page

I’m not going to pretend to know much about selling on Amazon (though not knowing much hasn’t stopped me from writing this newsletter for 2 years), but just know that one of the biggest concerns Amazon sellers have is what’s called “hijacking” a listing. If you list a product on Amazon, there are ways for other people to take control of your listing (your description, photos, etc). I’m sure you’re capable of Googling that if you’d like.

A story went around last week about a poor guy who had his listing hijacked, apparently as part of a dispute with another seller, and this was the result:

Unless the seller is Shaft, that’s gonna sting.

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AirBnBrilliant

When I work with companies - both early stage and later - on their messaging, typically I find that the underlying issue they have is messaging creep. They once had a very tight message for a very clear target, but over time that message has muddled.

Maybe you originally created a way to make it easy for marketers to use the data they have to personalize their campaigns. And then some time goes by and you have to be a Customer Data Platform. And then you are a Customer Data Platform based on AI that “brings together clean, consented customer data for real-time insights so you can know each individual like they are your only customer.” Or whatever. But also, that’s a real description.

Anyway, sometimes companies will bring in McKinsey or BCG or Bain to help figure out a new strategy, and $800,000 later, McKinsey will tell you to go back to the basics and focus on your core customer and your core benefits, and you’ll thank them profusely and then you’ll wake up in a cold sweat at 3:17am the next day thinking to yourself, “Why did I just pay someone - or 6 someones - $800,000 to tell me to focus on telling our buyers that we sell the exact thing that they want?”

And then you’ll think, “Because my CEO wouldn’t listen to me if I told him, so that’s why I brought in those kids from McKinsey.”

Yes it’s rare that companies actually do go back to the basics and think about their target market and what their core product differentiation is, and then go create campaigns to tell those people about the differentiators (this is called “marketing.”)

Which is why I’ve been incredibly impressed with the recent Airbnb ad campaign they’ve been running with the tagline, “Some trips are better in an Airbnb.” I really like that line because it’s trying to say that Airbnb isn’t for every trip - but for SOME trips, Airbnb is better.

Here are two examples. In the first, the message is that if you travel with kids, Airbnb is better than a hotel room because you don’t have to go to bed at the same time as your 7-year old:

In this second spot, they’re targeting groups of friends going on a trip: (“If you’re taking a trip with your friends, why pay for 4 hotel rooms to stay apart, when you can get 1 Airbnb and stay together?”)

Longtime Gobbledy readers may remember that last year we talked about VRBO’s own campaign where they focused on differentiating themselves from Airbnb (“you get the whole place to yourself.”)

It’s very, very unusual that both big players in a market actually create marketing campaigns based on real-live differentiators targeted at their core audience. Typically in a market like this, you’ll see more of a brand message (often by using celebrities or creating characters) and then back that up with a ridiculous amount of media buying (I’m talking to you, insurance companies and cellphone providers).

If you’re struggling to break through in a crowded market with large competitors, you can always go back and focus on the product differentiators - even small ones! - that set you apart. I know that there’s pressure in software to focus on the category and talk about how you’re the only whatever whatever platform for self-loathing brands (or whatever), but that type of construction (the only XXXX platform for YYY brands) nearly always rings hollow.

The Airbnb tagline is actually a pretty helpful rubric to use: think about your product. Then think about “For some people, XXX is better with your product.” Who are the “some people?” And for those people, what makes your product better? Then - and here’s the crazy idea - go market to those people and tell them what makes your product better.

Marketing is simple. But it’s not easy.

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As always, thanks for reading to the end.

I really, really enjoy chatting with readers, which is why I include a link to sign up for a 25 minute chat: Here’s my Calendly link. We can talk about Pizza Hut or Airbnb, or whatever. It’s really up to you. Or I can go over your website - it can be about work, really!

And lastly, I’ve been doing a bunch of workshops around messaging, and the outcome is that your homepage will be SO much clearer. If you want your homepage to be clearer, we should chat. You can reply to this newsletter, use that Calendly link, or email me at jared@sagelett.com.

And lastly lastly, if you want to reach an audience of marketing people, you can do no better than advertising in Gobbledy. That native ad above was pretty good, no? (Everyone loves humility.) Anyway, if you want to reach an engaged audience of marketing people, let’s chat about advertising opportunities. I’m still at jared@sagelett.com.