Airbnb's Passive Agressive Ad Campaign In San Francisco Has Spectacularly Backfired

Airbnb's Snarky Poster Campaign About Paying Tax Has Backfired Spectacularly
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San Francisco's population are about to vote on a piece of legislation that would dramatically undermine Airbnb's ability to operate in the city.

Known as Proposition F, it would impose a 75 night per year limit on short-term rentals along with regular inspections and force the company to pay Hotel Tax (something it has just started doing).

Unsurprisingly, Airbnb isn't too happy about this and as a response it started posting passive aggressive ads aimed at getting San Franciscans to stand behind them and take on the city council.

In short, it hasn't worked. In fact it has completely backfired, with the snarky messages infuriating people even more with the fact that Airbnb has only just started paying Hotel Tax anyway.

Since the ads got picked up on social media Airbnb has released a statement confirming that it will be taking them down:

“The intent was to show the hotel tax contribution from our hosts and guests, which is roughly $1 million per month. It was the wrong tone and we apologize to anyone who was offended. These ads are being taken down immediately.”

Well I think we've all learnt an important lesson here, no matter how in the right you might feel, always take the higher ground.