Jay Sandusky

The Regent Hotel, in New York’s financial district, needed to boost its weekend business. The strategy was to position the property as a romantic and luxurious weekend getaway right in the city. We didn’t win the pitch, and the hotel closed its doors shortly thereafter. I’d like to think there’s a connection. 

In the same way hospitals once built their brands on cardiac services, they’re now promoting neuroscience. Centra is well ahead of most other health systems in this service line. But with consumers still finding neuroscience a bit confusing, our goal was to make it as accessible as possible while still promoting the hospital’s impressive capabilities. 

58 billion paper cups end up in landfills each year — when they don’t have to. Vessel was created to put an end to disposable cups and replace them with reusable cups. I was thrilled to be the writer on this project. You can learn more at vesselworks.org.

As the industry’s oldest and largest professional organization, The American Chiropractic Association had lost its way. These consumer-facing ads were a part of a highly successful re-branding presentation that refocused their efforts on attracting only Chiropractors with the highest standards, Chiropractors who want to work hand-in-hand with other medical professionals, and Chiropractors who are leading the way in education and professional unity. Rather than featuring cheesy pics of people in pain, we chose arresting images of movement and freedom.

Award-winning ad targeting censorship by the Chinese government. 

St. Vincent’s competes with world-class hospitals in New York City and nearby Yale University. So it’s easy for consumers to overlook its superior cardiac division, made even better by its highly compassionate care. Understanding the need to preserve St. V’s “high touch” advantage while promoting its “high tech” advances, I conceived the “gentle hands/Sharper Minds” campaign. They liked the positioning so much they now use it in all the hospital’s advertising. 

400 rooms on 400 acres guarantees on thing. Privacy. In an increasingly crowded and noisy world, this was the perfect positioning to consumers of a certain means. 

More than any other group of its kind, Greater Richmond ARC celebrates the ability in people with intellectual and physical disabilities —including a huge employment program. With that in mind, we’re helping them rebrand, relaunch and rename the organization. These are a few of the ads that were in our rebranding deck. We’re now rolling out the campaign and the announcement of the new name, all of which I wrote. 

The print portion of the most successful anti-smoking campaign in NYC history. Unlike other anti-smoking advertising — which only focused on the ill effects of smoking — these ads trumpeted the positive effects of quitting.

Then we hit ‘em with the bad news.

The NYC City Dept. of Health wanted to expose the obscene amount of sugar in most drinks. Our idea was to show how much sugar even the most healthy-looking drinks contain.

Part of a pitch to the NYC DOT. The City was going to great lengths to make the streets more bike-friendly, so we used the streets as our template to tell their story. 

After 25 years as a carpenter, Roger Brouard got tired of digging through spackle buckets, flimsy canvas bags and poorly organized metal tool boxes. So he built a better tool bag. These print ads helped us win the business. And the subsequent Holiday on-line campaign — with a microscopic budget — resulted in two of the seven lines of bags selling out. 

To paraphrase Abby Hoffman, “Steal this sauce.” Knowing today’s cooks rarely have to time to cook from scratch but still want made-from-scratch quality, this spec campaign encourages consumers to “make our family recipe yours.”

Part of a new business pitch. Preen is every gardener’s dream because it actually destroys weeds underground, completely eliminating the need to weed. We sought to dramatize how the product “Kills weeds while they’re still seeds” by staging most of the ad underground and writing headlines that capture the profound hatred gardeners have for weeds.