October 23, 2015

Airbnb Issues Apology After Tone-Deaf New Ads Debut in San Francisco

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After a series of ads posted throughout San Francisco this week sparked the ire of both city residents and the internet, Airbnb on Thursday issued a company-wide apology to its employees for what many have described as an over the top passive aggressive ad campaign.

CNET reports marketing chief Jonathan Mildenhall said in an email the ads were “fundamentally inconsistent” with the company’s ethos and told employees it would be working with the public organizations it “wronged to make this right.”

“Yesterday I heard from so many of you about how embarrassed and deeply disappointed you were in us,” CEO Brian Chesky also wrote. “You were right to feel this way.”

After aggressively engaging in a long legal battle to avoid paying the city’s 14 percent hotel tax, Airbnb was finally forced to shell out over $12 million in back taxes earlier this year. The ads, which debuted on Wednesday, featured messages directed towards various city agencies, including public libraries and the board of education, that offered suggestions for how each should use the money.

The messages immediately backfired:

The controversy comes two weeks before California voters will consider Proposition F, a ballot initiative that could significantly restrict the type of short-term rentals that Airbnb makes available in San Francisco.

In a Facebook post, an assistant professor at San Francisco University criticized the company for spending millions to fight the ballot measure. 

“I’m happy to hear that you paid your taxes this year. I did too! Isn’t it awesome?,” the post began. “However, had you donated that $8 million you spent fighting Proposition F directly to the public libraries you love so much, that could have made a bigger difference. Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20!”

The outrage also gave way to moments of levity, with internet users creating mock billboards to poke fun of Airbnb’s now-infamous marketing debacle:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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