Black background with a white outlined rectangular sign featuring the word 'TURO' in bold capital letters and a right-pointing arrow outline.

Brand platform refresh

Turo brand platform refresh

THE CHALLENGE

After six years living with the brand platform, it was time to freshen it up and bring it into line with the maturing business strategy. After evaluating the current brand platform, we decided the positioning, tagline, and core values were the most impactful place to start. The existing tagline, Way better than a rental car, had served the brand very well over the years — it was keyword-optimized, functional yet aspirational, but it lacked heart; it wasn’t breaking through the noise the way the company wanted it to.

THE BRIEF

Evolve the platform into a more emotionally-driven, brand-forward space, with less direct response underpinnings.

THE SOLUTION

We engaged a branding agency, Koto, to help us do some soul searching. After several workshops and sessions with key executives, we emerged with a new brand strategy, tagline, and core values to provide a platform for reconstructing the brand identity. We then adapted the editorial and visual guidelines to align to these new sensibilities.

Tagline

After many sessions with key executives, we emerged with Find your drive, which ticked all the boxes. It:

  1. Elevated the brand into a more emotional, universally appealing space

  2. Spoke to all audiences. As a two-sided marketplace, there were suppliers (hosts) and consumers (guests). This tagline spoke to all parties, and acted as a unifying rally cry to bring us all together. For hosts, it tapped into their creative, entrepreneurial drive. For guests, not only did it literally allude to the business’ offering (rental cars), but it gave a typically commodified service a more specialized, unique, tailored-to-you edge.

Purple background with the words 'Tagline' and 'Find your drive' in white text.

Core values

After we nailed the tag, I took the lead on a project to evolve our core values to sit nicely in the developing “Find your drive” ecosystem. I hired and partnered with a brand strategist contractor, and we conducted key interviews across the Marketing, Product, and Executive orgs to see how we had evolved as a business and a team since we had defined our core values initially in 2016.

We landed on four core values that would serve as one set of united principles for guests,
hosts, and employees. They were the core personality traits that united us and made us distinctive.

  • Grounded — We see the person first

  • Expressive— We celebrate uniqueness

  • Bold— We push beyond the expected.

  • Driven— We strive to make it better.

An infographic displaying four core values: Grounded, Expressive, Bold, and Driven. Each value is represented by an illustration of people engaging in different activities, accompanied by a brief description.

ROADSHOW & BOD PRESO

I roadshowed these values around the company throughout the fall and presented them and the thoughtwork behind them to the Turo Board of Directors in New York in October 2022.

Two people sitting in the open trunk of a black SUV, with a background of trees and outdoor scenery.
A two-page spread from a corporate or motivational booklet titled "Turo core values." The left page explains the importance of core values, depicting them as personality traits that set a company apart. The right page discusses teamwork and balancing tension, suggesting core values as adjustable levers. The pages are cleanly designed with black text on a white background.
A collage featuring a smiling person making a peace sign outdoors, a woman commuting in a driverless car, and two people working together at a computer, with text emphasizing being grounded in human connection.
A young woman wearing white sunglasses and a white shirt touching her sunglasses, with her tongue out, beside a collage of six different color cars, with the word 'Expressive' in bold black text above the cars.

Brand identity evolution

After the brand platform had been renovated, we could then leverage the core values to update our editorial and visual guidelines. We took care to make very intentional creative decisions to make it all live in the same ecosystem.

More details can be available upon request.

Collage of various cars including a yellow sports car, a red vintage car, a green sports car, and a black DeLorean with gull-wing doors, with the word 'Bold' in bold black text.
A magazine spread featuring a headline 'Driven' and images of four people: an older man with a beard and sunglasses crossing his arms, a woman driving a car, and a young man standing in a parking lot with cars behind him. The text discusses making things better through collaboration and empowerment.