Also joining the brain trust was Douglas Atkin, a branding Svengali who worked on the launch of JetBlue in his previous life as…

“Also joining the brain trust was Douglas Atkin, a branding Svengali who worked on the launch of JetBlue in his previous life as an advertising executive. “I’m the devil, actually,” Atkin told the audience this spring at a conference called “Share,” put on by one of the “grassroots” advocacy groups he founded as a new guru of the sharing economy. Atkin, who was hired as Airbnb’s head of community last year, is the author of a book called The Culting of Brands: Turn Your Customers Into True Believers, which describes how companies can generate cultlike devotion using techniques gleaned from actual cults—or, as he calls them, “radical belonging organizations.” Atkin’s hand is evident in ­Airbnb’s newly conceived tagline—“Belong anywhere”—and he’s been adept at whipping up the party faithful at host meet-ups he organizes. (“Successful cults which are turning into the next world religions, like the Mormons, know that personal interaction is the fastest route to cult growth,” is one Atkin­ism.) In videos from the meet-ups, people say things like, “In my life before Airbnb, I always felt really beholden to the company I worked for. And now I just feel really free.””

–“The Dumbest Person in Your Building Is Passing Out Keys to Your Front Door!” (viaiamdanw)