Brands must be present enough to be received
Why most brand voice guidelines don’t work: the “not this” is a strawman nobody would pick. A real voice scale declines two good voices instead.
Why rubicon cx
Judge us by the company we keep
Who rubicon cx is
Making complex content systems coherent
As founder of Rubicon CX, I build clarity in complex systems. For more than 25 years, I’ve worked at the intersection of language and architecture—helping global organizations figure out what they’re trying to say, construct the systems to say it consistently, and measure whether it’s working. That’s what we bring.
That work has spanned 119 countries, 23 languages, and regulated industries where unclear communication carries real consequences. Content, at this scale, isn’t decoration. It’s load-bearing. Rubicon CX is how I bring that practice to organizations as a fractional executive partner. Bring us in at strategic inflection points when the problem is too structural for a writer and too operational for a consultant.
What rubicon cx DOES
Senior content & experience leadership without the permanent headcount
Rubicon CX works as an embedded senior partner when an organization needs more than execution but doesn’t need—or isn’t ready for—a full-time content executive.
That can mean defining the strategy, untangling a platform, establishing governance, redesigning workflows, building the editorial model, or simply giving content the senior ownership it has been missing.
approach
Find the system behind the content problem
Content problems rarely begin with the words on the page.
They begin in unclear ownership, fragmented platforms, competing audiences, inconsistent structures, broken workflows, weak governance, or organizations that have never agreed on what they are trying to say.
Rubicon CX works across those layers at once—content experience, architecture, operations, governance, and narrative—to make the system coherent enough for good content to happen repeatedly.
What we consider: the pillars of an effective content and experience strategy
Any strategy leverages brand knowledge and user insights from all available source to inform what our goals are and how we will use them to align with user needs and larger business goals.
Content experience
Always Consumer-Centric
This is the journey that defines the experience for the end-user. We design a targeted solution supporting a targeting or enterprise Content Strategy. Then, we create compelling content to move users through the funnel and keep them engaged. It’s all about the conversation.
Content delivery
Connected Digital & Print Platforms
The platforms determine the model and system design necessary to acquire, create, maintain, and approve content—wherever it is delivered. Using the back-end to drive toward branded engagement, for customers and business users alike.
Content governance
Ecosystem Evolution
Designs the operational processes and mechanisms that are required to ensure the continued success of content to maintain and evolve the ecosystem, including the roles required and their responsibilities.
The hidden roi of content strategy
The content problem
Too often, companies look at content as the last river to cross for an experience, with little understanding of the content they have or where that content will go—or what the costs may be. Many believe that it will take care of itself in a programmatic fashion.
Unfortunately that just replicates the problems that may lie with the existing content, and it doesn’t take into account how content will fit within a design system, leading to a less-than-optimal experience for the audience and increased and unplanned expenditures.
And ultimately, it will undermine the entire experience because your content lies at the heart of the overall experience.
THE LATEST FROM THE CROSSINGS BLOG
Content and experience strategy thoughts from Rubicon CX
Keats, negative capability, and the work that disappears
Keats called it negative capability: the maker who disappears so the work can belong to everyone. A poet’s discipline, and a content strategists’.
The leadership gap
Content programs don’t fail on execution. They fail on the leadership gap—all the responsibility for content, and no one with the authority to act on it.
Meaning and narrative
Organizations don’t create meaning — they receive it, unevenly. Narrative is the work of reconciling those differences honestly.
Content is the platform
Content isn’t a campaign, a style guide, a CMS default, AI plan, or a governance afterthought. Content is the platform they run on.
AEO and GEO aren’t a tactics problem. They’re a platform problem.
Everyone’s selling the same AEO and GEO checklist: schema, FAQs, entity claims. None of it works without a governed content model underneath. It’s the same lesson SEO tried to teach a decade ago.
who drives rubicon cx
Timothy Truxell
Founder and Executive Director
Tim is one of the original content strategists (circa 1998). He has worked not only for large digital agencies—the majority of his career to date, but also for a Fortune 50 company managing and creating compelling. content strategies that drove growth and created large cost savings for his clients.
CASE STUDIES
Insights and experience in action
NASCAR
A new platform entirely built from scratch
NASCAR had spent many years outsourcing it’s main digital presences to third-parties, foregoing any syndication and advertising opportunities and ceding editorial control of it’s wealth of existing content to that third party. They merely provided images and data from action at the tracks.
Upon deciding to take control of their digital footprint by taken the sites in house and standing up Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) from scratch, they engaged with a team to lead the content and experience strategy of the site. As lead content strategist, Tim Truxell, took the lead performing an existing state audit, supplemented by further reasearch, which then lead a suite of content activities and deliverables to inform not on the new experience design, but also site maintenance and management once the site had launched. These activities spanned all three content strategy pillars (content experience, content delivery, and content governance):
Content Experience
The following experience deliverables were completed: A full set of content recommendations based on a comprehensive audit to information the user experience and visual design, as well as further content work; a voice and tone for the NASCAR brand to act as its voice in the digital realm; and Editorial Guidelines to guide the creation and maintenance of site content on a day-to-day basis
Content Delivery
The following delivery deliverables were completed: A comprehensive content model to guide AEM development and provide editors and authors the system driven constraints necessary to ensure the integrity of the overall experience design; and a taxonomy and content and asset tagging strategy and metadata specification to guide the future appearance of dynamic and personalized content on the site.
Content Governance
The following governance deliverables were completed: a governance model to guide the continuing maintenance process, including the introduction of recurring content audits for content optimization; a comprehensive set of editorial workflows to guide content reviews during maintenance, including detailed editorial processes beyond the general systemic workflow steps.
GENESIS
Content model for Genesis.com AEM migration
Rubicon CX was tasked with completing the content model for the relaunch of Genesis.com on the latest version of Adobe Experience Manager (AEM).
Over eight months, we provided a content design that incorporated both business goals and user needs. We designed the following for development in AEM:
– 6 reusable widgets that could be incorporated into core components
– 3 content fragments that could be called throughout the site
– 4 experience fragments for commonly used content blocks
– 7 page templates to ensure the design integrity of the experience
– 29 content components for presentation on those templates
In addition to the content design, we also created authoring guides for a representative page for each template to ensure that business users and content authors would have the information they would need to maintain and populate content on the site.
We also contributed to the page-level content strategies for each page type.
Finally, as part of the run up to launch in August 2023, we shouldered the load of authoring content into the system, leading a team of content authors to make sure the site launched on time.
GENUINE PARTS COMPANY
Content discovery and strategy for NAPA Online
Rubicon CX was tasked with completing a complete discovery project for NAPAOnline for Genuine Parts Company aimed at improving the content and experience strategy of the NAPA Online property.
To do this, we performed a full inventory and audit of GPC’s digital property and conducted high-level internal research to determine the business goals for the future state experience. Over 20 stockholders were interviewed for initial readout as well as store walks to ascertain product organization within the store.
A competitive audit was also performed including competitors in the auto parts space as well as best-of-breed experiences in other ares based on content features and goals.
Using the information gathered in the initial phases, Rubicon CX prepared a high-level content and experience strategy for the next evolution of NAPA online.
This content strategy included ecosystem consolidation, content quality improvement, content maintenance process improvement, and identifying new content to bring NAPA Online up to par with modern digital experiences for all of its audiences.
This tactical guidance culminate in a content strategy playbook around each major template and content type required for the NAPA Online experience to support not only business goals but customer needs.
CERENCE
Product launch content strategy & copywriting
For the better part of 2020, Rubicon CX supported Cerence, the leader in providing AI solutions within your vehicles. First, we helped an overall content strategy, including a digital voice and tone to support their overall brand. This strategic effort also included page-level content strategies for the solutions landing nd product detail pages level templates.
With these foundations in place, Rubicon CX helped Cerence implement a repeatable product-launch content creation process. Each launch consisted of a press release, web content for the solutions and product pages, and a white paper of fact sheet to support he launch.
This resulted in a number of successful product launches supported by content on the web, both as page copy and downloadable PDFs. We focused on the product section and created content to support approximately 75% of the content that is currently live at Cerence.com, including the copy and fact sheets (below) in the following product areas:
1. Core Technologies
2. Cloud Services
3. Voice & Beyond
4. Mobility Platforms
5. Platform Developers
IHG
Enterprise taxonomy & metadata specification
IHG operates one of the world’s largest hotel portfolios — dozens of brands, thousands of properties, and content touchpoints spanning web, reservations, loyalty, and marketing. The challenge wasn’t creating more content. It was making the content they already had work harder across all of it.
We designed a unified content model and metadata taxonomy that gave IHG’s disparate systems a common vocabulary for the first time. From Adobe Experience Manager to the reservations platform and customer loyalty system, content could finally be described, discovered, and shared consistently across the entire ecosystem.
The practical impact was significant. Authors gained the ability to create content and assets once and publish them everywhere—eliminating redundant work and reducing the risk of inconsistency across channels. On the front end, the taxonomy enabled personalized component presentation based on visitor facets and known behavior, turning a static web experience into a responsive one.
The result was a content infrastructure built not just for IHG’s current needs, but for the scale and complexity their portfolio demands.
CARNIVAL ALL BRANDS GROUP
Content audit, recommendations, content model, an taxonomy for Holland America, Seabourn & Costa Cruise Lines
Carnival Corporation wanted to migrate three distinct cruise brand websites — Holland America, Seabourn, and Costa — onto a shared Adobe Experience Manager platform without flattening what made each brand unique. The challenge was architectural: how do you build one content model that serves three different audiences, three different brand voices, and three very different localization needs?
We started with a comprehensive content experience audit across all three properties, generating findings that informed UX, content modeling, and visual design simultaneously. From there, we developed a content model that guided AEM development across 50 templates and approximately 100 components—every one of them designed to flex across brand and localization requirements.
The localization strategy reflected each brand’s reality. Seabourn, catering to an English-speaking luxury audience, required no translation. Holland America needed a clean English-to-Spanish translation pipeline. Costa, operating across continental Europe, demanded a full multilingual localization strategy suited to the complexity of the European market.
A unified taxonomy, tagging strategy, and metadata specification tied it all together—enabling personalized content delivery across three brands from a single, coherent architecture.
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what clients say
Howie Chen
Founder and CEO, Pollsition
Tim is a superb content strategist. A true poet, he is incredibly thoughtful and expert in the nuance of language. He is a joy to work with in collaboration and a strong leader in teams. He is and always will be my go-to resource for content strategy work.
Alison Bell
Professor and Researcher, W&L
I’m allergic to technology, but I thought about setting up a site that I own completely. I just provided the content, photos, and examples of sites I liked, and Tim and Rubicon CX put together a great looking destination for my research and other information.
CONTACT RUBICON CX
Reach out to learn more
Where we work
We are located in Atlanta, but are well accustomed to doing business in a number of different times zones, ranging from IST to PST.
Office hours
Monday to Friday: 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM (EST)
Saturday: By appointment
Sunday: Closed
Contact details
Address: 1437 McPherson Ave. SE, Atlanta, GA 30316
Phone: +1 404.550.4561