01 BLUF
The Bottom Line:
- Full rebrand for the nation's leading shop owner coaching organization, replacing a brand mostly unchanged since the 1980s.
- Brand work expanded into a long-term evolution, including a 2026 audience repositioning under new leadership.
- Currently extending the brand into the product UX, with platform redesign and product-led-growth work in flight.
02 Our Role
Rebrand, Welcome Kit, Marketing Website, Brand Guidelines, Video Production, Product Design
03 The Details
How the engagement started
Craig Montgomery and I had worked together for years before ATI. We met at CargoSense, then collaborated at Derive Systems, then PowerFleet, then on a rebrand for Everywhere Communications. When Craig moved to ATI as President, he brought me in.
The Automotive Training Institute has been the nation's leading coaching and consulting organization for independent auto repair and collision shop owners since 1980, with over 1,600 active members across the US and Canada.
The Challenge
Member growth and retention had stalled. Competitor pressure was real, and a meaningful part of it was the dated brand. The coaching work itself was rock solid. The content was good. The marketing materials made the company feel stale from the outside, even though the work delivered on the inside had not gotten worse. What the brand needed was cohesion, voice, and energy.
The welcome kit
After the new logo and identity system landed, the first piece into members' hands was a redesigned welcome kit. Gun metal gray box on the outside. Open it, and the interior is yellow. Inside the lid, in yellow: LET'S GET CRANKIN. A custom tumbler and other items inside, all matched to the new brand.
It was more playful than anything ATI had shipped before. With the welcome kit, the new brand landed as personality in members' hands for the first time.
The marketing site and Superconference
The new marketing website launched in September 2024, built to communicate ATI's value to prospective members and support conversion into the coaching program.
We also produced video content for ATI's annual Superconference in Grapevine, Texas, including an event recap and source footage that ATI's team has used for ongoing promotional work.
Evolution under new leadership (2025-2026)
Craig left ATI. Joy Garcia joined and brought a different read on the brand.
As ATI used the new system across the business, something became clearer that had not been fully visible during the initial rebrand. Some elements of the brand and the imagery felt like they were aimed at shop workers, not shop owners. ATI's actual customer is the owner, and the brand needed to reflect that more directly.
We simplified the logo mark while staying inside the same visual family. We adjusted video and photography to lead with coaching and the coach-to-owner relationship, less with shop-floor imagery. Then we applied the new direction across every surface.
Extending into the product
The same revisit is happening on the product side. We are bringing ATI's training platform UI up to date with both modern app standards and the new brand. Phase 2 work in flight covers UX improvements, better third-party integrations, and product-led-growth in the platform itself.
- The full rebrand and new marketing site launched in September 2024.
- The welcome kit became members' first tangible experience of the new brand.
- A 2026 audience repositioning sharpened the brand around ATI's actual customer.
- Brand work is now extending into the training platform UX, with Phase 2 in flight.
- The engagement is ongoing.