How Cars.com Brought Their Rebrand to Dinner Tables With OpenFortune

Cars.com is the platform millions of people use to figure out what they're driving next, and how to stop overpaying for it. After years as a category staple, the brand rolled out a fresh identity and a new tagline, "Where to next?", built around the idea that car shopping is a journey, not a transaction.

Here's the thing about rebrands: nobody asked for yours. You can spend months refining a new logo, agonizing over typography, and workshopping a tagline into oblivion, but if customers don't actually notice, you've thrown a party no one came to. Cars.com needed a way to introduce the new look to a national audience without resorting to the same billboards everyone scrolls past on their phones. The goal was to feel discovered, not announced.

Cars.com teamed up with OpenFortune to put the new identity somewhere ads usually aren't: in a fortune cookie The moment people are thinking and talking about their future with family and friends.

2,750,000 cookies went out nationwide, each carrying a two-sided message built for the moment. Front slips played it cheeky with car-themed fortunes like "Life should never be lived in neutral" and "A smart investment today will open doors of opportunities tomorrow." Back slips dropped the jokes entirely, giving the new logo and "Where to next?" tagline room to breathe with nothing else competing for attention. One side made you grin, the other made the brand land. It's the kind of split that turns a fortune cookie into a small, edible billboard.

65% unaided recall, which means most people remembered Cars.com without anyone reminding them, a small miracle in a category where ads usually evaporate on contact. 15% took a photo of their fortune, turning a paper slip into free media for whoever was on the other end of their camera roll. Another 7% shared theirs on social, with diners posting things like "The Wrangler has been on my radar forever!" and one cosmically inclined user asking, "Universe dropping hints or what?" That’s over 190,000 social posts and 67,000,000 social impressions. That's free word-of-mouth, with the kind of organic reach a paid post would charge you for and still underdeliver on. When strangers start doing your brand voice for you, you can probably stop paying for impressions.

A rebrand only works if people see it. Cars.com made sure they did, cookies included.

If you want to learn more about how we can do the same for your brand, let's chat.