One shimmering sunny day, I rolled up my sleeves at a place called Hotel Engine as creative director (head of all creative, reporting to the CMO) to lead them through a rebrand and build the brand team. HE had been crushing it in their travel management space for a handful of years, ripping up profit goals and growing exponentially year over year. They were getting ready to add flights and cars to their travel platform that helps businesses save time and money booking travel with an incredibly powerful product. They were also in the process of doing a Series C round. It was all very exciting. They wanted a world-class brand and in-house team to help them grow, that was reflective of their trajectory on their way to take over the dinosaurs in their industry. 

They wanted to launch the brand and product with a nearly-impossible timeline. New name, new capabilities, new look and feel and voice, new typefaces, new positioning, new everything. Make the product the brand, and the brand the product.

I was like, these folks are completely bananas: so let’s do it. 

Fast forward to three months later and that new brand is out in the world: Engine. Travel’s first prosumer brand. That’s right, folks: six people built a new brand, product, website, identity, soup-to-nuts in three months.

We jammed with the brilliant brand babes at Franklyn—who are amazing collaborators and partners and pushed us as we pushed them— early on and also a little at the finish line. We built out a truly exceptional world-class team of in-house brand creatives and lovely humans. 

Welcome to Modern Travel Management: Engine. All gas, no brakes.

Impact:

Exclusive coverage in Fortune; earned media coverage in WSJ, Yahoo Finance, Crunchbase, and over 35 other major outlets

Drove 2024 revenue to over $1b, beating stretch goal

Increased signups by 562% through the new website