Airbnb creative director
Task 1 – Personality and individual differences
Creativity in Airbnb
Airbnb is known for several reasons as a creative organisation. First of all it invented the concept ‘peer-to-peer accommodation’, so the base of the organisation is already creative (Guttentag, 2013). Then the company worked out its idea in a personal and refreshing way, which is easily found back in the webpage design. For example Airbnb wants to provide their guests a social experience instead of a search experience at their website (Kuang, 2012). Next Airbnb distinguishes itself from similar peer-to-peer accommodation companies by providing professional photographs of the houses, taken by their own team of professional photographers. (Airbnb, 2013c). Besides this, co-founder Brian Chesky is even literally living on Airbnb, purely to discover negative user experiences. (Rapp, 2011). We think this is a very creative way to discover the dissatisfiers of a company.
At the moment there is not a creative director in the company, but Joe Gabbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, has a similar job. He is the chief product officer, which means he takes care of the end product, including design, inventing new ideas to elaborate the product etc. (Airbnb, 2013d).
Tasks of a creative director
The main task of a creative director is to be a point of inspiration and to come up with brilliant ideas (Creativebloq, 2013). More specified tasks of a creative director in Airbnb can be for example; lead designer of the website, brainstorming and designing new aspects for the product (such as the wish list, the neighbourhood section at the website etc.), understanding the needs and wants of the target group, maximising user experience, managing team members, carry out the right image of Airbnb, focussing on sustainable growth ideas and thinking of the possibilities for Airbnb to go mobile (Airbnb, 2013d; Airbnb, 2013e; Creativebloq, 2013).
Type of personality of the creative director
We think the new creative
Creativity in Airbnb
Airbnb is known for several reasons as a creative organisation. First of all it invented the concept ‘peer-to-peer accommodation’, so the base of the organisation is already creative (Guttentag, 2013). Then the company worked out its idea in a personal and refreshing way, which is easily found back in the webpage design. For example Airbnb wants to provide their guests a social experience instead of a search experience at their website (Kuang, 2012). Next Airbnb distinguishes itself from similar peer-to-peer accommodation companies by providing professional photographs of the houses, taken by their own team of professional photographers. (Airbnb, 2013c). Besides this, co-founder Brian Chesky is even literally living on Airbnb, purely to discover negative user experiences. (Rapp, 2011). We think this is a very creative way to discover the dissatisfiers of a company.
At the moment there is not a creative director in the company, but Joe Gabbia, the co-founder of Airbnb, has a similar job. He is the chief product officer, which means he takes care of the end product, including design, inventing new ideas to elaborate the product etc. (Airbnb, 2013d).
Tasks of a creative director
The main task of a creative director is to be a point of inspiration and to come up with brilliant ideas (Creativebloq, 2013). More specified tasks of a creative director in Airbnb can be for example; lead designer of the website, brainstorming and designing new aspects for the product (such as the wish list, the neighbourhood section at the website etc.), understanding the needs and wants of the target group, maximising user experience, managing team members, carry out the right image of Airbnb, focussing on sustainable growth ideas and thinking of the possibilities for Airbnb to go mobile (Airbnb, 2013d; Airbnb, 2013e; Creativebloq, 2013).
Type of personality of the creative director
We think the new creative