“I don’t believe that you can build legacy through transactional marketing or humorous marketing,” he said. “I believe you build legacy through cultural marketing and stories that people will remember.”
He’s been fortunate, he acknowledged, to work with companies that share his values. As CMO of Airbnb from 2014 to 2018, he led “Never a Stranger,” a campaign that used emotional storytelling to show how renters connect with locals.
At Rocket Companies, he’s applying the same approach to consumers chasing their own American dream.
“The most efficient way of growing Rocket and Redfin is to have human cultural stories that people remember,” he said. “Both these brands are such great sibling brands because Redfin helps you find the dream and Rocket helps you own the dream. And that beautiful symmetry around ‘Own the Dream’ means that we can tell stories that feel more human and more cultural and more memorable over time.”
Mildenhall has his own dream too: that the Rocket Arena open house is just the first of many.
“I would love to expand this to other cities,” he said. “I really want to build a reputation that the country’s most interesting properties are on Redfin.”
