Application · Senior Director of Brand and Content · Hostaway
I didn’t send a CV.
Clément Menviel - brand, narrative, growth. Twenty years of brand and creative direction, an agency founded and run for eight years, a digital business unit built from zero, and a practice where AI does the research, drafting, variation and localisation while humans keep strategy, narrative and taste.
Brand
Platforms, narrative architecture, naming, tone of voice charters.
Content
Editorial systems, content observatory, SEO and LLM discoverability.
Creative
Creative production supervised end to end: editorial, art direction, motion, delivery.
Growth
Acquisition, CRM and lifecycle, CAC · LTV, subscription and retention.
Your brief, line by line
Twelve requirements. Twelve answers, each with the proof attached.
01
12+ years across content, brand and/or creative leadership
Twenty years, continuously in brand, editorial and creative direction - from DDB Paris and Mastercard to group communications director of an international brand.
DDB Paris · Mastercard · Faust · Kaiman · Oxygen · STid · Unstable Narrative
02
Proven ability to build a marketing function from the ground up
Built a digital business unit from zero at Kaiman: strategy, team structure, hiring, workflows, testing culture, performance standards. Then founded and ran my own agency for eight years - consulting, creative, production, P&L.
Digital BU created from scratch · Hop Hope, founded and directed 2018–2025
03
5+ years building and leading teams, hiring senior talent
Agency director, office director and group communications director: recruiting, mentoring and developing strategists, editors, designers and producers - including senior hires - with profitability ownership.
Oxygen Marseille (office lead) · Faust (agency director) · STid (group comms)
04
Brand strategy, positioning, narrative architecture, visual identity system
Full brand ownership on high-identity brands: platform, narrative architecture, tone of voice charter, naming, visual universe, consistency across multiple countries and channels.
STid - France, Europe, Americas, Asia, Gulf · brand platforms across four sectors
05
A modern content engine: high-quality, high-velocity editorial and thought leadership
Editorial system rebuilds, content observatories and SEO architecture - the same architecture proposed here as four pillars with published methodology, so the brand becomes a source rather than an advertiser.
Content observatory + SEO architecture, twice, at group level
06
Build the in-house creative team: design, copy, motion/video, production
Ten years supervising creative production end to end - editorial, art direction, motion and delivery - on brands judged weekly on shelf. I know exactly which roles to hire first and which to buy.
Lactel · Maille · Aoste · Kellogg’s · Magnum · Panini · Bridélice
07
AI teammates for efficiency, humans for quality
This recommendation was produced with that operating model: ~430 AI-assisted queries and readings for research, drafting, variation and localisation - while positioning, narrative, taste and final quality stayed human. Every figure dated and attributed, including the inconvenient ones.
The document you just read is the proof of the workflow
08
SaaS GTM motions, buyer journeys, demand gen, lifecycle, sales enablement
Paid acquisition, analytics, CRM and lifecycle scenarios owned hands-on; a funnel here built on the real blocker (migration risk) rather than an information gap, with a free diagnostic as the entry asset and a written guarantee at the decisive step.
CAC · LTV · CRM and lifecycle · subscription and retention · e-commerce
09
Connect brand and creative to measurable business outcomes
An idea without an indicator is an opinion. Every recommendation I deliver carries how we will know if it worked - which is why this one proposes a proprietary metric, not just a slogan.
The Away Score: brand asset, product decision and retention KPI in one
10
Marketing to SMB / mid-market buyers in a high-velocity environment
Twenty years on FMCG brands judged in-store every single week, and B2B mid-market lead generation for industrial brands. The 10–40 unit operator is a small-business buyer with an owner’s reflexes - I have spent my career writing for exactly that person.
FMCG launches, promotions, packaging, 360 campaigns · B2B sector prospecting
11
Executive presence and cross-functional leadership
CSR and brand strategy carried to executive committee level under demanding non-financial reporting; group-level partnership with product, sales and operations across continents.
Comex-level reporting · 165-person group · international product & corporate comms
12
Category authority in a saturated market
The whole method: stop competing on adjectives, supply the unit of measurement. That is what turns a marketing budget into an appreciating asset - and into equity story material.
Whoever defines the metric defines the category
An idea without an indicator is an opinion.
Every recommendation I deliver carries the way we will know whether it worked.
Proof comes before promise.
A brand that publishes before it is asked to never faces the accusation of opportunism.
The proper noun is a luxury.
Naming the exact village, the exact hour, the exact number beats every generic claim.
How I work · Continuous improvement
A company never grows well in pieces.
Published as an op-ed for HN Services · Kaizen, Toyota, 1951
A growing company rarely looks like a building raised floor by floor. It looks like a city expanding too fast: a brand-new district glued to streets that were never renovated, buried networks nobody checks any more, foundations assumed to be solid because they are still standing. From far away, the city grows. Up close, it cracks.
In software that phenomenon has a name: technical debt. A system patched rather than repaired can run for years, sometimes very well - until it does not run at all. Debt is never spectacular while it forms. It settles in the blind spots: postponed decisions, documentation never updated, processes only two people still understand, small anomalies that end up being treated as normal. Then one day it presents the invoice.
Brand and content debt behaves exactly the same way. A message that ages without being re-measured, a tone of voice held by memory rather than by a written standard, a claim published once and never proven again - all of it looks fine right up to the moment someone checks. Continuous improvement is what stops an organisation from growing crooked: correcting a gesture, a delay, a method, a defect before it becomes structural.
Which is why I do not treat forty years of existing practice as a brake on speed. It is a strategic asset: it tells you where the breaking points are. Successful modernisation does not erase what exists, it strengthens it - transforming what must change without breaking what works. Real speed is making the existing evolve faster than it degrades.
The same discipline applies to teams and to non-financial commitments. Hiring fast is worthless if new arrivals do not inherit the standards of the historic teams; a client who changes contact should never feel they have changed supplier. And an unproven promise is worth nothing - which is why every recommendation I ship carries the way we will know whether it worked, and gets rebuilt on evidence every single year.
Growing fast is within reach of many companies. Growing whole is rare. That is the point of continuous improvement: not to slow the movement down, but to keep today’s speed from becoming tomorrow’s debt.
Track record
2025 - today
Founder · Unstable Narrative
Brand language and strategy practice. Brand platforms and strategic recommendations for industrial and consumer brands: natural beauty, hospitality, mobility, technology. Editorial system rebuilds, content observatory and SEO architecture, sector prospecting campaigns.
2025 - today
Communications & Marketing Director · Renewable energy group
Solar developer, 165 employees, ~1 GWp in development and operation. CSR strategy carried to executive committee under demanding extra-financial reporting. Content rebuild, acquisition, content observatory, SEO architecture.
2022 - 2025
Group Communications Director · STid
International identification and security brand across France, Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Gulf. Full ownership of a high-identity brand: platform, tone, visual universe, multi-country consistency. Content, press relations, international events, product and corporate communications.
2018 - 2025
Founder & Director · Hop Hope
Agency created and run in parallel: consulting, creative, production. Eight years building disruptive strategies that exceed business objectives while making internal teams believe in the mission. Full P&L, development and management.
2020 - 2021
Director · Oxygen Marseille
PR and influence agency, Marseille office lead. Press relations, influence strategy, spokespersonship and reputation management for regional and national advertisers. Team leadership, business development, office profitability.
2016 - 2017
Brand Strategy & Digital Director · Kaiman
Created the digital business unit from zero - hiring, upskilling, structure. Testing culture installed from scratch: A/B testing, journey optimisation, performance analysis, documented learning loops. Acquisition and conversion for Magnum, Aoste, L’Arbre Vert, Thales, STid.
2006 - 2016
Account Director then Agency Director · Faust Communication
Ten years on food brands judged weekly on shelf: launches, promotions, packaging, 360 campaigns. Strategic and commercial direction of the agency. Supervision of creative production from editorial to art direction to delivery.
2004 - 2006
Brand Manager France · Mastercard, then Advertising Executive · DDB Paris
International financial services in a fully data-driven environment, where every decision is justified by a number. Multichannel campaigns and retail, technology and banking partner coordination. Before that: 360 advertising projects at DDB on Lactel, Bridélice, Roc, De Beers.
Brands worked on
Lactel · Maille · Aoste · Kellogg’s · Magnum · Bridélice · Panini · L’Arbre Vert · Mastercard · De Beers · Roc · Bosch · Thales · STid
Education
Master’s degree (bac +5), B2C advertising - Sup de Pub, Paris.
Languages
French, professional English.
Alongside
Writing - novels and essays, in progress. Treasurer of the Main dans la Main autour du Monde association.
What I come to Hostaway to do
01
One. Give customers the brand you currently reserve for investors - one platform, one signature, one punctuation mark. No rebranding, no logo, no domain migration.
02
Two. Build the content engine as a proof machine: daily MEANWHILE readouts, a quarterly Away Index with published methodology, and the first content in this category that makes the profession laugh.
03
Three. Build the in-house creative team in the right order - senior narrative and design first, motion and production next, AI-native makers throughout - and decide honestly what stays with agencies.
04
Four. Ship a metric, not a slogan. The Away Score aligns brand health, customer success and revenue on one number, and it compounds every year you own the data.