The ad, Is Mankind?, is not meant to be creepy or self-parody…is it?

Sometimes, the best part of YouTube ads are the headlines. Is Mankind?, written above the (frozen) image of a toddler, makes a (ok, this) copywriter’s heart beat faster.

The ad, Is Mankind? TBWA\Chiat\Day for Airbnb? Honestly…it does something else.

This is what the ad is trying to say: “Airbnb believes that people can and should feel like they belong anywhere in the world. That feeling is possible because of the human kindness found in our community–because of hosts who were once strangers, who welcome us no matter how far we are from home. Go and see just how kind this world can be.” And the ad does – in its YouTube blurb.

But the new global ad shows a toddler walking towards a glass front door while a soliloquy about the nature of mankind is delivered in a super-serious voice with super-dramatic pauses between its phrases.

If watching a child determined to reach a door doesn’t make a danger siren blare in your brain, a voiceover that encourages, “Are we good? Go see. Go look through their windows…,” probably won’t seem to be encouraging illicit behaviour and, “Sleep in their beds, so you may know their dreams…,” probably won’t seem like a creepy suggestion.

Perhaps the ad tells you all the right things. And the tagline, Belong anywhere, will support your translation. You’ve got to wonder if you are one in a million though.