Airbnb launched its first global billboard campaign in 2022 to raise awareness of Categories, a new product feature designed to help travelers discover the breadth of listings on the platform. Crafted to echo the look and feel of the app, each billboard paired a clever headline with a single distinctive home and a Category label. It was a deceptively simple formula, but the photography had to tick multiple boxes: striking enough for a billboard, realistic enough to feel like an actual place to stay, and defining for the Category.

I was the lead creative for photography on the first iteration of this campaign, helping build Airbnb’s out-of-home discipline from scratch and working closely with a team that sold ideas directly to the VP of Creative. I was responsible for photography across more than 70 unique billboards in 22 cities worldwide, generating over 2 billion impressions, driving the highest new-user acquisition rate in company history.