TBWA/Chiat/Day’s Airbnb story, Is Mankind?, continues:

But first the story so far:

On July 14, TBWA/Chiat/Day launched a global ad for Airbnb called Is Mankind?, that features a toddler’s journey to the front door and a voiceover that philosophises about the nature of human beings. Which made The Stable ask, is Airbnb serious?

On July 16, digital agency, Portal A, launched Is Man Kind?  Airbnb was serious. The Portal A ad was not. It was a parody with perfect pitch.

Now Airbnb has launched its Daily Kindness Bulletin(s), presented by Peter Sissons, who led the BBC’s flagship evening news program from 1993 to 2003. If most news shows focus on negative news, this is a parody version. All of its stories are positive – about man’s acts of kindness.

Oh…plus, the first three shows went to air (online) within 24 hours. And the whole series will go to air within a week.

Daily Kindness Bulletin 1 is six minutes and a half minutes long and features three stories: a man, paralysed from the waist down, who has been given equipment that enabled him to walk for the first time in two years, a pitbull acting as guide dog for his blind terrier dog-buddy, and the 116th birthday of a Brooklyn NY woman, known for her generosity.

What’s it about? Well 1. Airbnb does business because people are kind enough to lend their homes. And the people who “borrow” other people’s homes are kind enough not to trash them.

And then there’s 2. – Airbnb’s explanation:

According to Airbnb, it had commissioned a YouGov study in the US, UK and Australia, in which two-thirds of participants stated that they liked to be kind, but only half thought that man (in general) was kind. As an aside, the study also revealed that people prefer reading positive over negative stories by a ratio of 10 to one.

Most people stated that they witness unkindness in their social networks at least once a week. 59% of US participants believe society has become unkinder in their lifetime and 51% blame the Internet.

So Airbnb consulted Dr. Emiliana Simon-Thomas, the science director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, to create a show that featured the bad news antidote, positive news. He believes that when negative news gets a disproportionate amount of coverage, a cynical view of humanity becomes entrenched.

Sissons introduced the first Airbnb Daily Kindness Bulletin with this explanation, “We’ve uncovered a number of incredible stories that show man is kind more often than not, that many go the extra mile, and that not all news is bad news.”

Airbnb chief marketing officer, Jonathan Mildenhall, noted, “We believe in humanity and we’re putting that humanity and truth into the soul of our marketing.”