Turo brand refresh, 2021-22

Tagline

In 2021, we decided it was time to freshen up the brand. We evaluated the brand architecture, and thought the tagline and positioning would the be the logical thing to focus on first. Our existing tagline, Way better than a rental car, had served us well over the years — it was functional, utilized a very handy keyword (“rental car”), and got the job done, but it lacked heart. We thought we were ready to evolve into a more emotionally-driven brand positioning.

So we engaged a branding agency, Koto, to help us do a bit of soul searching to refresh our brand positioning and tagline. After many sessions together, and with key executives, we emerged with Find your drive. We loved it for many reasons, but primarily that it:

  1. Elevated the brand into a more emotional space

  2. Spoke to all our audiences. As a two-sided marketplace, we had suppliers (hosts) and consumers (guests), as well as the marketplace itself. This tagline spoke to all parties, and acted as a unifying rally cry to bring us all together.

Core values

After we nailed the tag, I took the lead on aligning 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 what had changed and how we evolved 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 make 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.

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.