EST. 2001 – San Francisco, CA.
The expertise of an agency.
The alignment of an in-house team.
The agility of a freelancer.
Engineered to work as one.
Modern marketing departments need an alternative to the traditional creative support models that have existed for decades. Engine® introduces a new operating model that combines the capabilities of an agency, the alignment of an in-house team, the strategic leadership of a fractional CD, and the agility of a freelancer into one integrated creative machine. The result is a creative resource that adapts to your changing needs.
Purpose-built for today, Engine provides executive-level creative leadership and hands-on execution across every creative discipline, giving marketing organizations flexible capacity that can shift as priorities change. Rather than adding staff, engaging multiple specialists, or continually expanding agency scopes, Engine applies the right combination of strategy, creative, and AI-native workflows wherever they are needed.
Years in Operation
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Why CMOs Choose Engine:
The challenge :
Marketing priorities rarely stand still. A product launch may require immediate attention one month, followed by a sales initiative, campaign, website, presentation, event, or brand challenge the next. Yet most creative resources are fixed, internal teams have finite capacity, freelancers typically provide a specific skill set, and agencies often operate within predefined scopes, disciplines, and budgets. The result is a familiar problem for marketing leaders: plenty of priorities, but not always the right creative capacity available when and where it is needed.
The approach :
Engine gives organizations a more flexible way to solve that problem. Rather than building creative resources around individual projects, job titles, or predefined scopes of work, Engine provides executive creative leadership and multidisciplinary execution through one integrated engagement.
As your priorities change, Engine shifts with them, applying the right combination of strategy, creative direction, copywriting, design, production, and AI-native workflows to the work that matters most. The result is greater creative capacity without continually adding staff, sourcing specialists, expanding agency scopes, or rebuilding the team around every new initiative.
How wework:
Engine is designed to integrate with the marketing structure you already have. We work alongside internal teams, agencies, freelancers, executives, and other partners, providing senior creative leadership and hands-on execution where it is needed.
Because the relationship is built around your priorities rather than a fixed list of deliverables, the work can evolve from month to month. One period may center on a product launch or campaign; another may require sales enablement, brand development, digital execution, executive communications, or agency coordination. Engine stays connected to the organization and moves with the work.
Built for today:
The economics and capabilities of creative work are changing rapidly. AI-native workflows allow experienced creative leadership to research, explore, develop, iterate, produce, and execute at a scale that previously required significantly larger teams and more organizational infrastructure.
Engine combines those new capabilities with decades of professional creative experience, judgment, and accountability. AI does not replace creative leadership; it expands what experienced creative leadership can accomplish. The result is a leaner, faster, more adaptable creative resource built for the way modern marketing organizations operate today, giving smaller organizations the ability to compete creatively at a scale once reserved for companies with significantly larger teams.
The following are some of the questions and considerations we hear most often from marketing leaders evaluating whether Engine is the right fit for their organization :
We already have an Ad/Design agency.
Great. Engine does not need to replace it. We can work alongside your agency, help strengthen briefs and creative direction, coordinate priorities, review work, and provide hands-on execution where additional support is needed. Engine can also absorb high-priority initiatives that fall outside an agency’s existing scope, giving your marketing organization additional capacity without requiring another project estimate, another specialist, or another permanent hire.
Why not simply hire another employee?
Sometimes that’s exactly the right answer. But a full-time hire adds one person with a defined role, skill set, and fixed capacity. Engine gives your organization access to executive leadership and multidisciplinary execution within one engagement, allowing the type of expertise applied to change as your priorities change.
What if our current team and partners are already working well?
Then Engine should make them more effective, not disrupt them. We can provide additional senior perspective, take ownership of initiatives that are stretching internal capacity, support execution, and help coordinate work across internal and external resources. The objective is to strengthen the system you already have.
Why Engine instead of a fractional CCO or CD?
A fractional executive can provide valuable senior leadership, but the role is often primarily advisory and still depends on internal teams or outside partners for execution. Engine combines executive-level creative leadership with hands-on multidisciplinary execution, allowing strategy and production to remain connected within one operating model.
Today, everyone has AI. Why do I need Engine?
Access to AI is not the same as knowing what to generate, why it matters, whether it is strategically sound, or whether the work is good enough to represent your organization, and how to modify it. Engine combines AI-native workflows with experienced creative judgment, brand stewardship, strategic thinking, and executional abilities. The technology increases capacity; experienced leadership determines how that capacity should be used.
Can Engine integrate with our existing team?
Absolutely. Engine is built to operate as an experienced extension of your marketing department rather than outside it. We can collaborate directly with internal marketers, designers, executives, sales teams, agencies, developers, and other partners, adding leadership and execution without requiring your organization to restructure.
Generating creative without strategy is like playing darts blindfolded.
Meet The Founder :
Engine was founded in 2001 by Robert Solis, an award-winning Creative Director with more than three decades of experience helping organizations build stronger brands, launch products, support sales teams, and solve complex marketing challenges.
Robert’s career has been unusually multidisciplinary. He has worked professionally as both a writer and an art director/designer, giving him the ability to move between strategy, messaging, visual communication, and execution rather than approaching creative problems through a single discipline. He is also bilingual in English and Spanish, bringing additional perspective to organizations communicating across diverse audiences.
Throughout his career, Robert has led creative initiatives for hundreds of organizations ranging from emerging startups to Fortune 500 companies across technology, healthcare, finance, consumer products, wine, hospitality, nonprofit, and government sectors. His work has earned numerous advertising awards and has been featured by CNN, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Adweek, and Advertising Age.
Engine itself was created as an alternative to the traditional agency model: a senior creative boutique operating with the efficiency of an independent contractor structure, giving organizations access to high-level creative work without passing along the overhead of a traditional agency.
Today, Engine is evolving again. By combining decades of executive-level creative leadership with AI-native workflows and new production capabilities, Engine can deliver a level of strategic and executional capacity that once required a much larger organization. The technology has changed; the standard has not. Experienced judgment, strong ideas, accountability, and work that moves organizations forward remain at the center of everything Engine does.
Creative. Reengineered.™
Learn how Engine’s engagement model differs from traditional creative support models, and why it was built for today’s marketing departments.