The truth behind Airbnb's Super Bowl ad

Airbnb's moving Super Bowl ad is winning the company a wave of good press for its willingness to take a stand for diversity.

The home-rental company has tried to milk the story further by pushing a narrative in which it rushed to make the commercial in one night.

Stories in the New York Times and other outlets (including Mashable) reflected that storyline.

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The claim may be technically true, but it's also a little misleading. The concept and much of the footage used in the spot were pulled directly from an ad the company released late last year, so when CEO Brian Chesky said on Twitter that it was "made" last week he more precisely means "re-edited" with new copy and a new tagline.

Furthermore, that original campaign was damage control over reports of discrimination within the platform.

Airbnb's Super Bowl ad:

Airbnb's 'Community Contract' ad from November:

Airbnb had responded to widespread accusations of hosts denying service to black people on the basis of race with an internal review and a series of policy tweaks meant to address the problem.

The company announced the ad along with those changes to let people know it was taking the issue seriously.

Even at the time, Airbnb tried to frame the ad as a response to the divisive political climate.

"The intention was for the audience to be our community," Airbnb's chief marketing officer, Jonathan Mildenhall, said in an email interview at the time. "But as the rhetoric of the country began to boil over, it became clearer than ever that this message of acceptance was beyond Airbnb."

But the actual origin of the conceit and most of the imagery was somewhat downplayed when the company's public relations department set about pumping up its Super Bowl ad. Instead, it gave the impression that the spot was an impromptu show of goodwill spurred by the company's concern about the direction of the country.

That concern may be real, but it's also worth noting that the message wasn't originally created with our current political moment in mind.

Chesky acknowledged the source material on Twitter Monday afternoon after Inc.'s Jeff Berkovici raised the issue.

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The ad follows Airbnb's move to give free housing to any refugee stuck abroad because of Donald Trump's travel ban. The gesture was somewhat undercut by the revelation that it would mostly rely on hosts donating their homes for free.

In conjunction with the Super Bowl ad, the company also pledged to provide short-term housing for 100,000 people in need over the next five years and donate $4 million to the International Rescue Committee.