Made a jersey retirement as famous as D. Green & Art Monk himself. Sold out the game through fan experiences that went beyond the stadium.
Gave an athlete his first brand deal and created his signature sauce. Generated 2B+ impressions and sold more wings.
Repositioned a hotel brand as the home base for festivalgoers and music culture. Booked more rooms through strategic targeting.
Built a comprehensive 3-year brand playbook — architecture, voice, messaging — that unified every touchpoint across the organization.
Built a comprehensive brand playbook unifying brand, culture, social, and campaign strategy across 3,000+ locations.
Implemented targeted digital strategy that consistently generates 20 new customers per month for this law firm.
Helped sports fans get to know their favorite athletes through authentic content and strategic brand partnerships.
How I helped the Washington Commanders sell out Darrell Green's jersey retirement game
The Washington Commanders needed to sell out a jersey retirement game honoring NFL legend Darrell Green, one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time. The challenge was creating buzz and driving ticket sales for what is traditionally a ceremonial moment.
The Problem:
Jersey retirements are all the same, rarely talked about beyond the game day announcement. Fans view them as nice moments but not compelling reasons to buy tickets.
Make this jersey retirement as famous as D. Green & Art Monk
Transform a single-game ceremony into a multi-week cultural moment that celebrates Darrell Green's legacy across the entire DMV region.
Recreated Darrell Green's draft moment with interactive fan experiences
Limited edition penny jerseys that became instant collectibles
Dominated DC Metro stations with Darrell Green's story and legacy
Partnership with National Museum of African American History and Culture
Youth football camp teaching Darrell Green's legendary techniques
Exclusive Nike product drops celebrating Darrell's career
Limited edition running shoes honoring the NFL's fastest man
Grassroots events connecting Darrell with local communities
Interactive display celebrating his Hall of Fame career
Special uniform patch worn by all players during the game
How I helped Days Inn book rooms by positioning them as the home base for festivalgoers
Days Inn was stuck in a category trap. The brand had spent decades positioning itself as a budget hotel for business travelers — competing on price against Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and countless others in a race to the bottom. Room occupancy was flat. Brand perception was stale. The brief was clear: shift Days Inn from a budget business hotel into a music HQ — a cultural destination that festivalgoers, artists, and music lovers would seek out. This wasn't a campaign. It was a brand repositioning.
The festival circuit is a lifestyle
Festival-goers don't just attend events—they tour. They need a reliable, affordable home base that understands their culture. Days Inn could be that place.
From "budget business hotel" to "music HQ." Reposition Days Inn as the home base for music culture — a brand that understands the festival circuit, the late-night sessions, and the community that music creates.
Target festival attendees with geo-targeted ads near major music events
Create content featuring real festivalgoers and their stories
Partner with music influencers and artists to build credibility
Offer festival packages and group booking discounts
Branded the entire experience around festival culture
Festival-goers sharing their Days Inn experiences on social media
Interactive tool showing Days Inn locations near upcoming festivals
Special group rates for festival crews traveling together
How we built a 3-year brand strategy that transformed Cedars-Sinai from a respected hospital system into a beloved healthcare brand
Cedars-Sinai is one of the most respected hospital systems in the country — but healthcare brands are notoriously distant. Patients feel like case numbers, not people. The organization needed a unified brand strategy that would make every patient interaction feel personal, compassionate, and remarkable.
The ask: develop a comprehensive brand playbook that would guide every department, every service line, and every touchpoint for the next three years.
Healthcare is personal before it's clinical
The most powerful thing Cedars-Sinai could do wasn't to brag about rankings or technology. It was to make every patient — from the moment they walk through the door — feel like the most important person in the building. "We See You" became the organizing idea.
We built a comprehensive brand playbook — a living document that defined the brand architecture, messaging framework, and creative guidelines for every part of the organization.
Brand Architecture
How master brand and service lines relate to each other
Messaging Overview
The voice, tone, and core narratives for every audience
Service Line Messaging
Tailored positioning for cardiology, oncology, neurology, and more
Defined the north star that guides every decision — from clinical care to cafeteria design.
Excellence, Integrity, Diversity, Respect, and Compassion — operationalized, not just posted on walls.
Built a messaging architecture that works across service lines while maintaining one unified brand voice.
Every great brand strategy starts with the fundamentals. Here's how we defined Cedars-Sinai's identity layer by layer.
Defined what Cedars-Sinai stands for in the mind of every patient, employee, and partner — a nonprofit academic health system where inclusive care meets world-class medicine.
Articulated the human traits that make the brand feel alive: Dedicated. Curious. Energizing. Resilient. These four words now shape every communication.
A story that connects the organization's history, values, and vision into one compelling arc — giving every team member the same script for answering "What does Cedars-Sinai stand for?"
Distilled everything Cedars-Sinai represents into a concise, powerful statement anyone can deliver — from the CEO to a new hire on their first day.
Mapped every entity — the parent brand, local brands, subsidiaries, and partnerships — into a clear hierarchy. This eliminated confusion about when to use which mark, and gave every business unit its proper place in the family.
Operationalized the personality traits into concrete writing guidelines. Dedicated means we're thorough, not detached. Curious means we ask questions, not assume. Energizing means we inspire, not overwhelm. Resilient means we're honest about challenges while projecting confidence.
Four strategic pillars organize every message: Remarkable Strengths, Reliability & Excellence, Breakthrough Innovation, and Commitment to People. No matter the audience or channel, the message ladder ladders back to one of these themes.
Messages that work across every audience — design principles, structural strengths, and quantitative proof points that define Cedars-Sinai's excellence at a glance.
Patient-facing messaging organized by category — overarching brand promise, accessibility, seamlessness of care, and research leadership. Every patient touchpoint now speaks the same language.
A brand playbook is only as good as its adoption. We created tailored messaging frameworks for every audience Cedars-Sinai serves — physicians, employees, donors, academics, researchers, community partners, international patients, and individual service lines. Same brand. Different conversations.
Messaging that speaks to what physicians actually care about: research opportunities, collaborative care models, and operational excellence that supports their practice.
Four strategic messages that make every employee — from surgeons to custodial staff — feel like an essential part of the Cedars-Sinai mission. When your people believe, your patients feel it.
Voice breakdown and proof points tailored for philanthropists — connecting their giving to tangible impact. Donors don't fund buildings; they fund outcomes.
Positioning for academic audiences: student outcomes, clinical partnerships, and interdisciplinary studies. Cedars-Sinai isn't just a hospital — it's a teaching institution at the forefront of medicine.
Researchers want to know they'll have resources, freedom, and impact. This framework speaks to all three — attracting world-class talent who want to push boundaries.
Messaging for referring physicians, partner hospitals, and affiliated clinics. When the network speaks with one voice, patient handoffs become seamless.
Messaging that demonstrates Cedars-Sinai's commitment beyond its walls — community engagement, health equity initiatives, and the work that makes a hospital part of a city's fabric.
For international patients traveling to Los Angeles for care — messaging that balances world-class clinical excellence with the warmth and accessibility that makes a foreign hospital feel like home.
Service-line-specific messaging that translates complex conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic pain into clear, compassionate patient communications — without losing clinical precision.
Translating cutting-edge neuroscience into language patients can understand. Three pillars: Translation by Design, Advancing Art & Science, and Improved Patient Experience.
The brand idea that unified everything. From the way phones are answered to the way surgical outcomes are communicated. "Always Remarkable" isn't a tagline — it's a standard that every Cedars-Sinai team member, in every role, can measure themselves against.
How we built a brand playbook that gave one of America's most iconic pizza chains a unified voice, a sharper identity, and a cultural strategy to match its ambitions
Papa John's had the product. "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza." wasn't just a tagline — it was a genuine operational commitment. But the brand had lost its swagger. Years of leadership transitions and inconsistent marketing had left the voice fragmented across franchisees, corporate, and consumers.
The ask: a comprehensive brand playbook that would unify the entire organization behind a single, compelling brand story — with the cultural relevance to win with a new generation of pizza lovers.
Pizza isn't just food. It's a social contract.
When someone orders pizza, they're making a promise to the people they're sharing it with. "This is going to be great." Papa John's needed to be the brand that takes that promise seriously — not just with ingredients, but with devotion. "Hey Papa" became the invitation.
We structured the playbook across four strategic pillars — giving every part of the organization a clear, actionable framework for bringing the brand to life.
Brand Strategy
Purpose, positioning, audience, and the brand role that defines how Papa John's shows up in the world
Cultural Strategy
Where the brand plays in culture — from sports moments to entertainment to community rituals
Social Strategy
How the brand shows up in feed, in culture, and in conversation across every platform
Campaign Guidelines
Creative guardrails that ensure every execution — from national TV to local store signage — feels unmistakably Papa John's
Defined the four pillars: Purpose (why we exist), Positioning (where we win), Audience (who we serve), and Brand Role (how we show up).
Mapped the pizza consumer landscape and identified where Papa John's could own territory no competitor had claimed — the pizza brand that cares as much as you do.
We translated "Better Ingredients. Better Pizza." from a product claim into a full-featured brand identity — with values, personality, and behaviors that every team member can embody.
We defined the organizational DNA — from purpose and differentiators to personality traits and advocacy behaviors. This gave Papa John's a human voice, not just a corporate one.
A mission statement that doesn't feel like corporate jargon: "Love pizza as much as your customers do." Simple. True. Actionable. Every Papa John's team member gets it instantly.
Six non-negotiable commitments that back up "Better Ingredients" with operational reality: fresh dough, signature sauce, real cheese, legendary garlic sauce, satisfaction guaranteed, and employee training. These aren't marketing claims — they're standards every franchisee is measured against.
A brand that sells pizza to millions can't sound like a committee wrote it. We gave Papa John's a personality — confident, approachable, lighthearted, and unexpected — and a tone of voice that makes every communication feel like it came from a person, not a corporation.
Four personality dimensions define how Papa John's shows up: Confident (we know our pizza is better and we're not shy about it), Approachable (we're the pizza brand you actually want to hang out with), Lighthearted (because pizza is fun — we don't take ourselves too seriously), and Unexpected (pizza can be irrational, and so can we).
Pizza is the food of Friday nights, birthday parties, and celebration. The brand voice reflects that — playful, warm, and never taking itself too seriously. When your product is joy, your voice should sound like it.
Pizza is irrational — you order it at midnight, you argue about toppings, you make memories around a cardboard box. The brand voice embraces that beautiful irrationality with surprising, delightful creative that breaks from pizza category conventions.
"Better Get You Some" isn't a tagline — it's a declaration of confidence. We wrote a brand personality anthem that captures the swagger of a brand that knows its quality and isn't afraid to say so, while staying relatable and fun.
We built a flavor descriptor system that makes every ingredient sound irresistible, plus a proof-point framework that backs up confidence with substance. No empty claims — just fresh dough, real cheese, and legendary garlic sauce, described in a way that makes you hungry.
A comprehensive guide that operationalizes the four personality traits into actual writing rules. Each trait has a "this, not that" framework — so anyone writing for the brand knows exactly how to sound.
Confidence isn't arrogance. This framework shows how Papa John's demonstrates confidence through quality — knowing the standard, owning pizza charms that competitors can't match, and never resorting to insecurity about the competition.
Approachable means accessible — not cheap, but never pretentious. This framework shows how to balance quality positioning with welcoming language, pricing, and visuals that make everyone feel like Papa John's is their pizza place.
We mapped the creative territory for the national awareness campaign — defining what Papa John's advertising should and shouldn't feel like. Four lanes: avoid childish humor, avoid cold corporate aesthetics, avoid sappy sentimentality, and lean into the warmth of real pizza moments shared with real people.
Great brands own a simple, powerful idea. Here's the territory we carved out for Papa John's in the crowded pizza landscape.
The Venn diagram that defined our space: Pizza Superiority on one side, Pizza Devotion at the center. Papa John's doesn't just make great pizza — it cares about your pizza experience in a way competitors don't.
The rallying cry: Papa John's is for people who refuse to settle. "Against Good Enough" became the internal mantra — a standard that applies to dough, service, and how you treat a customer at 10pm on a Friday.
We personified the brand as "The Pizza Class President" — confident but approachable, quality-obsessed but never pretentious. The kind of person who brings the best pizza to the party and makes sure everyone gets a slice.
A brand playbook that stays on a shelf is worthless. We defined how Papa John's activates across culture, community, and every customer touchpoint — from menu boards to loyalty apps to primetime TV.
Make Papa John's the Most Beloved Pizza Brand
Not the biggest. Not the cheapest. The most beloved. Every strategic decision — from menu innovation to cultural partnerships — ladders up to this single, measurable ambition. It's a goal that marketing, operations, and franchisees can all rally behind.
Pizza has been taken for granted for too long. The brand's role: put pizza back where it belongs — at the center of culture. Not as background food, but as the main event. Every activation, partnership, and campaign should make pizza feel big.
We studied how category leaders beyond pizza — Busch, KFC, Heinz — turn commodity products into cultural icons. The lesson: own your lane, be relentlessly consistent, and never let the product become wallpaper.
A great brand isn't just what you say — it's everything you do. We mapped six activation areas where the brand must come alive: menu innovation, upsell strategy, retail & app experience, loyalty programs, talent & culture, and customer experience. Every touchpoint matters.
Pizza Culture
Making pizza the story, not just the catering — pizza fashion drops, pizza art, pizza moments that people talk about.
NBA Partnership
Owning basketball culture — the sport where pizza and fandom intersect most naturally. Game night = pizza night.
Nightly TV Presence
Papa John's as a recurring character in primetime — not just ads, but integration that makes the brand part of the show.
Fashion Collaborations
Pizza as lifestyle — unexpected collabs that put the brand in spaces where the next generation lives and shops.
"Better Ingredients. Better Pizza." extends to "Better Communities." We defined a social good framework that connects the brand promise to community action — not as a CSR afterthought, but as a natural extension of what the brand stands for.
We built a measurement framework that tracks what matters: brand reach, sentiment, cultural coverage, and relevance among next-gen consumers. Not just impressions — actual brand health indicators that show whether "Most Beloved" is getting closer.
Don't just take our word for it. Here's what our clients have to say about working with us.
"The team at Jacob Strategy Group completely transformed our digital presence. Within 3 months, we saw a 400% increase in qualified leads and our revenue doubled."
"Strategic, creative, and results-driven. Jacob Strategy Group helped us scale from a local brand to a national presence. Their expertise is unmatched."
"Working with Jacob Strategy Group was a game-changer for our business. Their data-driven approach and creative excellence delivered ROI beyond our expectations."
