Travel Brand Away Names New CMO, Plans to Boost Its Marketing Budget

Away hired Carla Dunham as chief marketing officer as the luggage and travel accessories company tries to make the most of the industry’s pandemic recovery.
Ms. Dunham had most recently been chief marketing and merchandising officer at e-commerce delivery startup Foxtrot and previously held high-level marketing roles at retail and fashion businesses including Kate Spade and Amazon Fashion.
She succeeds Melissa Weiss, who joined Away in late 2021 and left last summer, the company said.
Away previously said its sales totaled $150 million in 2018, and the startup secured $100 million in funding in 2019 at a $1.4 billion valuation.
But the pandemic severely hurt business for Away and other travel brands. The New York-based company, formally called JRSK Inc., either furloughed or laid off a majority of its staff in early 2020 after sales dropped by more than 90%, according to a company post on Medium at the time.
Carla Dunham, chief marketing officer for Away. Photo: Away
Business has picked up again as travelers around the world return to prepandemic activities, according to Ms. Dunham.
Away’s sales during the period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday last year nearly doubled the total during the same period in 2021 and were 60% higher than in the same period in 2019, Ms. Dunham said. She declined to disclose total sales for 2022.
Away attempted to capitalize on the industry’s recovery in the last half of 2022 by releasing a new line of outdoor-focused travel accessories and a new broadcast ad campaign with the tagline “Let Travel Happen.”
Away this year will continue to lean heavily on influencers and self-produced content while increasing its investment in highly targeted or performance-based marketing that can be more directly tied to sales, according to Ms. Dunham. The company increased its spending on traditional and streaming TV commercials by approximately 50% in 2022 and expects to double that total in 2023 while also spending more on social-media platforms like TikTok, she said.
The company also plans further investment in its retail locations, which Ms. Dunham described as “three-dimensional billboards for the brand.”
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Away attracted attention in the past for unconventional marketing moves such as the launch of a branded podcast and print magazine called Here. The podcast stopped airing new episodes in 2017, and the magazine became a web-only property in 2020 after publishing 14 quarterly print editions.
Ms. Dunham reports to Away co-founder and Chief Executive Jen Rubio. Away late last year promoted its chief financial officer, Catherine Dunleavy, to become its first president.
Write to Patrick Coffee at patrick.coffee@wsj.com