Client: airbnb – Agency: We Are Nomads – Genre: Micro-Documentary
Four films that moved Airbnb’s favourability in Cornwall by +20 points
Airbnb’s favourability in Cornwall had fallen by around 16%. The campaign brief asked for a 5% recovery. Independent polling after the campaign measured a 20% rise — four times the target. These are the four micro-documentaries that did it.
+20%
favourability lift, vs a +5% target
4
micro-documentaries, street-cast in Cornwall
32
film deliverables across four lengths
160
Stills delivered (retouched)
THE BRIEF
A brand problem you could hear in the pub
In 2022, the conversation about tourism and housing in Cornwall was at its sharpest. Airbnb’s favourability in the county had fallen by around 16%. Nomads, the Amsterdam and London-based brand agency, was commissioned to build a hyper-local campaign; print and digital, running only in Cornwall; to tell the other side of the story: the residents whose livelihoods depend on visitors.
Nomads needed a production partner on the ground. Here Now Films is a London-headquartered production company that was founded in Cornwall and still runs a studio there, which is exactly why the call came to us. We won the work in a competitive pitch against another Cornish production company, on the strength of our treatments and our photography bench.
The brief was explicit about one thing: local, real and authentic would trump slick marketing at every decision point. No actors. No scripts. Real residents, found on the street, telling their own stories.
The KPI was equally explicit: lift favourability by 5%.
FINDING THE STORIES
Street casting, done on foot
We spent days street casting in St Ives, Newquay, Falmouth and Bude, building a long list of around twenty real Cornish residents whose lives are genuinely tied to tourism. No casting agency. No actors. Each cast member was compensated with an Airbnb voucher rather than a standard fee, keeping the exchange inside the story the campaign was telling. The amount was far less than even a standard modelling fee and was more a gesture of thanks for their days of work. The brief was explicit about one thing: local, real and authentic would trump slick marketing at every decision point. No actors. No scripts. Real residents, found on the street, telling their own stories.The KPI was equally explicit: lift favourability by 5%.
THE FILMS
Four characters, four relationships with tourism
Jake Boax
The Potter
Jake Boax is a potter who calls the South Coast village of Porthleven home. Over the years he’s seen a steady increase in demand for his art, and has even launched courses through the airbnb experiences app. For Jake, tourism is one of the main drivers of the success of his art.
Ellen Watson: Central Cornwall
The Painter
The production
Four shoots in one week,
everything in-house
Shoot week
Four documentary shoots across Cornwall in the week of 9 May 2022, Porthleven, Portreath, Newquay and central Cornwall. Interview and sequence per character, including in-water sequences shot by our own crew.
Photography
Stills ran alongside every film day, shot by photographer John Hersey. 40 selected stills per character, 160 in total, feeding the print and digital campaign.
Deliverables
Per character: 2-minute, 1-minute, 30-second and 15-second cuts, each in subtitled and clean versions, 32 film deliverables, plus social cutdowns and sub-5MB pre-roll encodes for regional media partners.
Testing & review
First edits went into Airbnb’s creative testing within two weeks of the shoot. Review ran through Frame.io directly with the Airbnb and Nomads teams. The campaign launched in two phases through summer 2022: landscape assets in June, the character films in late July.
Duty of care
The campaign sat inside a contested local debate, so the cast were never left to weather it alone. We ran welfare checks with every cast member after launch, jointly with Nomads and Airbnb, and handled corrections and concerns within hours when they arose.
A local resource
The final films were hosted on a bespoke webpage for over a year. The mini site signposted residents and hosts to resources to help with working sustainable and ethicaly within the local landscape.
THE RESULT
Four times the target
Airbnb commissioned independent polling in Cornwall after the campaign. The numbers came back in November 2022.
−16%
Favourability fall that triggered the campaign
+5%
The KPI set for the campaign
+20%
Measured favourability lift — 4× the goal
A 20-point favourability recovery in a single summer, in the county where the brand’s problem was most acute, built on four residents telling the truth about their own lives.
QUESTIONS
About this project
Who produced Airbnb’s Cornwall campaign films?
Here Now Films produced all four micro-documentaries and campaign photography for Airbnb’s 2022 Cornwall campaign, commissioned through brand agency Nomads. Here Now Films handled casting, production, in-water cinematography, edit, grade and delivery in-house.
What results did the campaign achieve?
Airbnb’s favourability in Cornwall had fallen by around 16% before the campaign. The campaign KPI was a 5% recovery. Post-campaign polling commissioned by Airbnb measured a 20% favourability increase, four times the target.
How was the cast found?
Through street casting. Here Now Films built a longlist of around twenty real Cornish residents across St Ives, Newquay, Falmouth and Bude, no actors, no casting agencies. Four were selected: a potter, a young family, a painter and an oyster seller, each with a different relationship to tourism.
What was delivered?
Four micro-documentaries, each in 2-minute, 1-minute, 30-second and 15-second cuts with subtitled and clean versions — 32 film deliverables — plus 160 campaign stills, social cutdowns and pre-roll encodes for regional media partners.
Can Here Now Films run street casting for other campaigns?
Yes. Street casting and documentary casting of real people is part of our standard production offer, in Cornwall, London and across the UK. The Airbnb campaign was cast entirely on foot by our co-founder over several days.
GET IN TOUCH
A brand problem that needs real people to solve it?
We make documentary-led campaigns built on real residents, real customers and real outcomes, and we measure them. Talk to us about casting, production and what a result like this takes.