‘The key to your local story’: from tea with Jaffa cakes to a brand tagline

On a sunny day in, Sarah (our Marketing Director)’s living room – with some cups of teas and Jaffa cakes we began brainstorming what is it that we want our brand to convey. After a couple of hours of lively discussions we had the wall full of yellow post-its with all good/bad/fantastic/inspiring words for what it means to us so that it will be something that we could be proud to share and create.

The only challenge, be it small, that we encountered was that essentially we have 2 groups of customers: homeowners and guests. These 2 groups want different things. We were convinced that there is a link and we knew we were so close to finding it.

The Key

By imagining our customer journey we thought that the word ‘key’ had a great meaning – as it’s both literal and metaphorical which, of course, resonates. It was simple to understand and again the image of handing over keys to a new home for our guests was also a sort of ritual that we believe is very important.

Local

The word ‘local’ was already in our minds as it is what our homeowners are and what guests are aspiring to be when they arrive in a new country.

Story

And finally the word ‘story’ – it is a thread that connects all your memories from your stay. As soon as you are back from you travels, what do you do? You tell a story. A local story.

Likewise, our homeowners share their stories with us that we wrap into our Guest Guides and include in all our descriptions. Our guests can not only live like a local but also picture what our homeowner’s life is like and step into their shoes to create memorable stories of their own.
For our team there is nothing better than one of our guests reflecting on her local story in their review so we wanted to share this one from a recent stay in our Brixton home:

‘Our hosts (UnderTheDoormat team who manages the homeowners apt) made my family (my parents, my husband and I) feel very welcome. They were helpful with any questions we had before our trip and were exceptionally helpful when it came to our arrival and departure. Under TheDoormat team did an excellent job providing directions on how to find the apartment; which would have otherwise been challenging- the door to the space is not an obvious or well marked area. Nuria was there to greet my parents when they arrived. She walked them through the apt showing where things were & how things worked. She provided an excellent description of the area, great recommendations on where to eat and information about the fabulous Brixton markets & shops.

The listing for “Trendy Brixton Garden Oasis” was accurately described. Brixton is an urban, up-in-coming, Caribbean influenced district, just outside London proper. The pictures on the site accurately reflect the calm, comfortable home of well-traveled homeowners. Our family has decided based on living in John and Simon’s space for a number of days, that these two individuals would be very interesting people. I could easily imagine our families sipping tea from their own personally grown Sri Lankan tea farm. Later transitioning to wine, we would sit outside in their garden, courtyard patio; having to then ask the question, how did one manage a chicken coup with chickens here?

I imagine we would love hearing about their various stories and adventures, as reflected throughout their home in treasures hung on their walls and hints of travels past, or maybe of future plans, as evidenced by the many travel books neatly stacked along the shelf. Before scheduling our first airbnb (ever), I met a lovely UK couple on one of my many Chicago business trips. They recommended staying outside of London proper due to higher London costs, and said frankly the people are friendlier, very welcoming, and promised our new favorite pub would be “just a stones throw”. They were highly encouraging regarding my ideas of booking with airbnb.

They were right on in all accounts, because we had a wonderful time!

Jill, USA

Big thanks to Jill for sharing her story with us and we look forward to hosting her and her family for their next trip to London and who knows – could be in another city very soon.