Ryan Miller
All case studies

Case study · AutoCamp

Created a category-defining outdoor hotel brand

Co-founded outdoor hospitality brand AutoCamp. Onboarded Airstream as a design partner and investor. Now partnered with Hilton.

An AutoCamp Airstream by the water at dusk, AutoCamp Yosemite
AutoCamp Yosemite
$115M
investment I helped attract
9
locations, from Joshua Tree to the Catskills
TIME
World's Greatest Places, 2019
10 years
as co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer

Challenge

The outdoors feels intimidating to a lot of travelers, and a boutique hotel in nature built around Airstream suites didn't exist yet. We had to make something new feel safe to try.

What I did

I wrote all of AutoCamp's positioning for ten years: the brand platform, identity, website and business plan. I launched each new market as a product, built the corporate retreat offering with sales, and worked with our PR agency on national press.

Result

AutoCamp grew from one site to 9 locations and attracted $115M in investment, with Airstream as design partner and investor. Hundreds of top-tier press placements followed, including TIME's World's Greatest Places.

Sunset magazine July 2016 cover featuring an AutoCamp Sonoma Airstream
Sunset magazine cover, July 2016
Ryan during opening week at AutoCamp Sonoma
Opening week at AutoCamp Sonoma
“Ryan is a creative visionary and was able to develop and execute extremely robust marketing strategies for AutoCamp on a fairly frugal budget during a period of fast-paced growth.”
Anjali Agarwal
Former COO, AutoCamp

Why it matters

People try new things once they feel safe. AutoCamp made the outdoors feel easy, and that's the same job new technology has today.