As the makers of "the internet's favorite razor", Billie had garnered social clout and press buzz for showing women's body hair in their ads, cornering the the Gen-Z market by positioning shaving as a neutral choice, not a social mandate. But that message of "it's cool if you don't use this" didn't scale well in new categories like bodycare (true essentials like body wash, body lotion, and deodorant). Billie needed to stay true to their norm-breaking, body-positive ethic while still positioning these products as necessary. Trace worked with the Sr Brand Director to craft a product positioning that threaded this needle, tapping into beauty standard-resistance while celebrating the tactile and experiential pleasures of personal routines (write loosely: "the bodycare your body's actually asking for").This became the framing for on-pack copy, launch materials, PDP copy, and ads. To bring this life on the brand side, Trace pitched and scripted a 60-second launch video called "10 Things I Hate About Bodycare" (after getting the rights from Disney). Styled to recall the famous poem scene in "10 Things I Hate About You", the gist of the video was that women today are tired of hating their bodies and actually hate the products that treat their bodies as problems to be solved or "fixed"; they're looking for something better—enter Billie! The spot ran on streaming services and covered in AdAge, Forbes, and WWD.

Before Away launched, Trace worked one-on-one with co-founder and creative director Jen Rubio to establish the brand's voice and key messaging. Jen knew what she wanted: an aspirational-yet-accessible tone of voice that could appeal to any gender or income level. Tapping into the then-emerging millennial lionizing of experiences over possessions, Jen thought travel itself was the real product Away was selling, not the suitcase. If it could come through subtly, she wanted Away to re-position travel (typically a degrading drain) as a status symbol, a lifelong pursuit, and the key to becoming a better person: globally conscious, culturally sensitive, emotionally open—in a word, worldly. This became the north star for copy, and everything from the site's "About Us" page to hardworking paid search taglines to subway campaigns to product packaging would be able to trace their lineage back to this idea. It was subtle but effective; the resulting copy nodded to these ideas without getting too lofty of self-serious, and captured the hearts and baggage claims of the nation. Because the product itself was designed to serve the real-life practicalities of travel, Away's copy & content reflected the realities *and* the glamor of travel, staying rooted in relatable experiences and reinforcing the idea that world travelers aren't a rarefied breed—anyone could be one, or at least imagine themselves one. This became Trace's go-to formula when writing foundational copy. Core brand messaging is strongest when comes from the ground up AND the top down, building "up" from the product (making it rooted, practical) and trickling "down" from a guiding principle (making it ambitious, searching, symbolic, culturally relevant, never 'over'). This way, the brand can talk about anything, from physical details to abstract ideas while standing on firm ground—nothing's a stretch or too far out of reach. You could think of it as vertically-integrated messaging: the principles reflect the product; the products reflect the principles. For Away, the product was a suitcase made of unbreakable plastic with a built-in charger—from that, you can infer character implications for copy: the Away character is resilient, not delicate, and can weather bumpy ride, meaning the brand can talk about the realities of travel without bursting the bubble of aspiration. The charger suggests forethought, working smarter not harder, and being prepared without being precious. Content-wise, that means we can assume a degree of canniness from our audience—they are a bit shrewd and want to give themselves even small advantages over others. They'd shudder to be caught short or seen as a hot mess. Combine these product-based insights with the north star "we sell travel, not suitcases" and you have the beginnings of a brand that can sustain and maintain its messaging over time, weathering multiple CEOs, a global travel shutdown, planes falling apart, and shifting trends in travel ethics. I'm proud that, 10 years later, I can look at Away's HP and Our Story pages and see that the phrasing has been refreshed (as it should be over a decade) but the same core positioning and tone is still there today. Done well, your brand messaging should maintain a core continuity over time, while its expression in copy stays free to reflect new occasions, seasons, and realities.

Prose's only product at the time was "custom haircare", something most people don't see an obvious need for. But the messaging explaining why a person needs the product, how it was customized, and the ingredients used, etc, usually hampered rather than encouraged purchase. Trace was brought on to streamline the messaging and refine the voice across all channels. She broke down the messaging to component parts, making a series of easily-grasped value props, often leading with results, testimonials, or the experience of use ("transform your hair with custom care"). Downstream from that was information about greenness and ethical harvesting. This hierarchy and streamlining lead to grabbier hooks for ads, a more cohesive story on site, and scalable messaging that could include other products and categories (like hair brushes, fragrances and skincare). This led to a 30% jump in revenue in mere months, picking up from there through the pandemic.