Airbnb Apologizes for Tone-Deaf Hotel Tax Ads, Will Take Them Down
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
This ad really is the equivalent of that, and is a bad look - to the point where I would consider using a competing service if available.
I'm sensing a pattern here -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309480
So much for 'market solutions.'
A big claim made by proponents of Prop F is that the existing, and recently created, compliance by AirBnB and hosts has been questionable, and hotel taxes paid are a big part of that. On a KQED Forum on Prop F, David Campos made some big deal about how the amount of hotel taxes paid by AirBnB is obscure and unknown, even though the figure should be readily available to him as a city supervisor; it makes sense to me why AirBnB would want to advertise that (with their campaign budget that's 2/3 the amount they pay in SF hotel taxes per year apparently).
Prop F is a slimy and questionable proposition in all dimensions, and it would make a broad law with impacts beyond AirBnB rentals. You shouldn't vote for or against it based on your gut view of the company.
People are way too uptight in SF. AirBnB already faces plenty of regulations - most passed in the past year. Prop F is not needed and won't lower housing costs in SF.
"Out of your $12 mil of hotel tax, only 1.4% percent goes to the SF Public Libraries. So that's $168,000. Divided by the 868 library staff, we have $193 per person. Assuming each employee works 5 days per week minus holidays, this is $0.78 per employee per day. Since that's significantly under San Francisco minimum wage ($12.25/hr), I doubt that your hotel tax can keep the libraries open more than a minute or two later.
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!"
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10100700506082939
Also note the comment: "what a smug, shitty ad"
If SF spent the whole $12 million on libraries, that would be $55/employee/day, which seems plenty to keep libraries open for an extra few hours. Even if SF only spent "some" of the money on libraries, as the ad suggested, even spending $3 million would come to $14/employee/day which seems enough for a meaningful expansion of services.
As to hypothetical numbers at the end, why? The percentage the libraries get is fixed by the city, presumably...
P.S. Apparently they have variations of the ad for other services. Maybe on some, however they phrased it makes more sense, but not really in the libraries' case.
P.P.S There is actually a small fallacy/glossing-over in the librarian's argument: the $12MM (or 1.4% thereof) is (presumably) an increase that Airbnb can claim credit for. But theoretically the library could have other sources of income that together would allow for more opening hours. I guess the assumption is that they don't have a lot of surplus.
If they're suggesting they are paying so much taxes that (among other things) the library can now offer longer hours the librarian's post is a pretty straightforward approach of how you should analyze it.
http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Initiative_to_R...
Reported financing in favor or prop F is $354,398 raised, $354,398 spent (these numbers are in the link above).
Against prop F has raised $8,432,791 and spent $3,601,423.
Why is it "unlike" Airbnb? Airbnb's very roots color it as being dodgy, with growth hacking techniques like spamming Craigslist and all: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#Use_of_spam
There are less awful interpretations, but most people don't spend a lot of time pondering the implications of bus station ads; they really should have known better than to run something that could possibly be interpreted that way. And I can't think of any interpretations that are actually positive. I mean, at root, they're trying to remind us that they pay taxes which are spent on government services. And...what? So does everybody else. We're supposed to praise them? Feel sorry for them?
I can think of what they might've been aiming for. My read is that it was attempting to come off as cutesy/joking but didn't pull it off. I think I've seen this ad style before, though I'm drawing a blank on a good example. A fake "you're welcome" from a brand, "You're welcome for [thing], make sure to spend/not spend it [in accordance with knowing in-joke]. Love, Your Friends at Brand".
The problem here was that instead of cutesy in-joke, it came off as a mix of smug on one hand, and complaining about libraries on the other, which isn't really the right tone for what the campaign is trying to achieve. One thing I'd be curious about is where the ads originated. Is it AirBnB itself being tone-deaf, or did they contract the campaign out to an ad agency that bungled it?
In this case AirBnb seems to be taking their frustrations out on an innocent third party that has nothing to do with their regulatory/taxation woes, and doing so in a condescendingly smug way.
An ad that targets hotels would still be pretty hostile and probably come off as petty also, but at the very least it would be targeting someone who actually has something to do with the issue.
Who the hell has an axe to grind with public libraries?
[edit] Oof, it gets a bit worse:
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/10/21/passive-aggress...
"A follow up email, explaining that we were in fact seeking confirmation as to whether the ads are actually from Airbnb received the following response: "Are you seriously writing on this?""
So not only did they issue a bunch of petty, passive-aggressively condescending ads, they seemed to have no idea why anyone would find it in poor taste.
It also makes you wonder if this is the best argument they have, their position must be pretty poor.
Should Airbnb care what a handful of people are saying on Twitter, most of whom already hate the company?
AirBnB has two choices: Say nothing, or lie.
"On Twitter" is apparently to news organizations what "on the internet" is to the patent office.
That said, at least TC has asked the company for a response (putting them on the more mature and responsible end of the scale).
Airbnb seems to be saying that such a use of the taxing power is a mockery of our form of government. And I rather think it has a point.
Now you can disagree and say that Airbnb really is a hotel, as a legal matter. But the sheer animus that the anti-Airbnb crowd seem to possess indicate that they want to use the taxing power to do harm.
[1] For those who don't like this, here is the California 2016 budget, showing that well over 50% of the state's spending is on benefits, not on governmental administration, transportation, education, or policing: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/California_state_spendin...
The tone-deaf part is just the way the ad campaign making that argument came off. The format of a letter saying effectively, "you're welcome for the tax dollars, love AirBnB", ending with a comment about how maybe libraries can use the money to stay open later, was probably intended to come off as cutesy, but was instead perceived as smug and passive-aggressive by at least a portion of the public.
Personally I think Airbnb are a bunch of douches that seriously need to grow up.