Airbnb shifted its marketing dollars from performance to brand, and by its own admission, it’s helped them turn around their business through the pandemic.

This is a narrative violation in the marketing race to bottom of the funnel. Performance marketing is linear and easily understood by CFOs and VCs. CAC to LTV ratios just fit better in a fund-raise deck, compared to brand health measures.But for someone who learnt marketing in CPG, it feels intuitive and obvious – Brand marketing, when done well, lubricates everything in the funnel effortlessly.

Airbnb is probably the only VC-funded startup to have achieved profitability in the class of companies founded post the financial crisis in 2008.

The Airbnb case study should be the first slide in any pitch deck for ad sellers (especially CTV) pitching for brand dollars to startups.