Case study · 01
$3M → $10M
Scaled in under a year
500+ Meta ads, and additional media assets helped the Tampa Bay based HVAC company scale from $3M to $10M in under a year.
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FOUNDER-LED CREATIVE PARTNER/MINNEAPOLIS · MN
CREATIVE STRATEGY + CONTENT FOR BRANDS & THE PEOPLE BEHIND THEM
BUILD A BRAND PEOPLE ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT.
We help businesses and founders grow through strategy, content and paid creative — building the brand, the audience and the creative that gets people to care.
STRATEGY/CONTENT/PAID CREATIVE
Selected brand experience
Brands that have invested in
CREATIVE CTRL Creative + Strategy
CREATIVE CTRL / BRAND INDEX
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
Selected impact · Real outcomes
Results,
not promises.
A closer look at the creative and paid work behind the numbers.
Case study · 02
$200K+ ADSPEND
Spent on one founder ad
The original founder ad spent $200K and with iterations became one of the best-performing ads in company history on a brand doing $10M ARR.
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Case study · 03
TOP UGC CREATOR
Creator · June–September 2025
Established narrative-style frameworks for the brand and was a top UGC creator from June 2025 to September 2025.
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Case study · 04
$30K+/DAY
Scaled supplement brand to $30k+/day in under 60 days
Using TOF creative. $54.57 CPA — 4.6% below the $57.22 blended account CPA, despite the account heavily leveraging BOF retargeting.
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The CTRL System
Strategy shouldn't live in one place, production in another, and distribution somewhere else.
The CTRL System connects the entire process — from understanding what needs to change to building, distributing and improving the creative that changes it.
Understand
Learn the business before we make the creative.
// Business// Customer// Offer// Competition// Goal
Before we make anything, we learn the business, the audience, the offer, the competitive environment and what we're actually trying to change.
Find the Angle
Find the idea worth putting money behind.
// Positioning// Concepts// Hooks// Narratives// Offers
Turn what we've learned into creative directions built around the right message, angle, narrative and offer.
Build It
From idea to finished asset.
Pre-production
Concepts · Scripts · Shot Lists · Creative Direction
Production
Video · Photography · Founder Content · UGC
Post-production
Editing · Copy · Design · Landing Pages
Built for
Paid Social · Organic · Web · Digital
Full production from beginning to end. We plan it, produce it and turn the strategy into finished creative built for where it will actually live.
Put It to Work
Build for distribution, not a portfolio.
// Paid// Organic// Founder-Led// Local// Digital
Creative isn't finished when it's exported. We build around where the work will actually live and how the audience will encounter it.
Read the Signal
Let the audience tell us what matters.
// Attention// Engagement// Conversion// Customer Response// Creative Performance
Real-world response shows us what people care about, what deserves more attention and what should change.
Next Round↻
Keep what works. Build what's next.
// Keep What Works// Kill What Doesn't// New Angles// New Creative
Turn performance into the next creative direction instead of starting from zero every month.
Human-led. AI-accelerated.
AI doesn’t replace the thinking. It removes the bottlenecks. Human strategy, production and creative direction stay with us — AI just makes the research, ideation, iteration and analysis around them faster.
Human
Strategy · Taste · Direction · Production · Accountability
AI
Research · Ideation · Iteration · Analysis · Speed
CTRL
The system connecting both.
Creative discovery
Tell us where
you’re trying to go.
A focused starting point for a useful conversation.
Interactive plan builder
What are you trying to accomplish?
Step 1 / 4
Select everything you’re trying to accomplish.
We’ll use your goals to prepare for the conversation.
Target onboarding
3–5 business days
Selected work by our founder
HANDS ON. ACROSS MULTIPLE NICHES.
Home Services
Creative · Production · Paid social
DTC / Ecommerce
Creative · Production · Paid social
SaaS
Creative · Production · Paid social
Local Business
Creative · Production · Paid social
Selected founder work — direct brand engagements + SaaS work from John’s role at DOPE Marketing.
CTRL LAB / 001 · Live Case Study
Can the CTRL System take a local restaurant from $0 → $50K/month?
We’re putting our own system to work on our own business.
In October, John is reopening his family’s restaurant. We’re documenting the creative, decisions, campaigns, mistakes and results as they happen.
No hindsight case study.
No polished success story written after the fact.
We’re building this one out loud.
$0 → $50KLoading...
Founder’s note / 2023 → 2026
In 2023 our founder closed the doors on his family owned restaurant after his dad’s battle with cancer, though he blames his previous lack of marketing knowledge mostly. Since then he has become a Swiss army knife in video marketing and advertisement working with 7–8 figure brands, growing his personal brand to 30k followers / 20 million views organically and leading creative campaigns for Inc. 5000 listed companies. John vowed “if he ever gets another chance” he’d do it 10x better. October 2026, we’re back, we’re starting from $0 but this time he has CREATIVE CTRL.
John Hunter Jr. · Founder
Built by an operator, not an agency
10 years behind the camera. Now built for founders.
I bought my first camera ten years ago. Since then, I’ve worked across SaaS, home services, DTC, and retail, creating for local businesses, generated $40k+ in sales month 1 for my family owned & operated restaurant as a Jr. marketer and lead creative campaigns for brands doing $70M+ in revenue.
I’ve been the videographer, editor, strategist, creative director, and the guy behind the ads. I’ve also worked inside agencies and learned exactly what I don’t want CREATIVE CTRL to become.
And I’m not above the criticism. I’ve taken on too much myself. I worked outside my capacity, the work suffered, and I lost a client or two because of it. I hated that. I still do.
It made me question an industry built around constantly adding more. More clients. More retainers. More layers. Less attention. When someone’s livelihood is on the other side of the work, I don’t understand how you can just churn and burn.
I’m a dad. I don’t want to build the biggest agency in the world. I want to be useful to businesses I actually know and people I actually care about.
So I made myself a promise: never take on more than I can serve well.
That’s CREATIVE CTRL.
Stay close. Work within capacity. Give a damn. Be accountable.
Why we stay small
Every CREATIVE CTRL engagement gets senior creative involvement.
We don’t build a giant client roster and hand the work down through layers of account managers. We work within our capacity so we can stay close to the businesses that trust us.
If we’re a fit, we go deep.
What we are not
We’re not trying to be your agency.
- / No endless pitch decks.
- / No layers of account managers.
- / No pretending everything happens in-house.
- / No guaranteed performance claims.
- / No confusing marketing jargon.
Accountability
You should hold us accountable.
You’re trusting us with your brand, creative, advertising, and reputation. You deserve clear expectations and direct communication. We want feedback. We want questions. We want you involved.
Because you’re giving us CREATIVE CTRL.
Standalone on-site production · Minnesota
Creative Ctrl Direct
Need something shot?
Book professional on-site photo or video production without an ongoing engagement.
On-site production only
Need something shot?
Choose professional photography or video production, request a date, and we’ll handle the rest.
01 · Photography
$1,500
- Up to 2 hours on location
- 30 edited images
- 4–7 business day delivery
Professional on-site photography for brands, products, teams, events and social content.
02 · Video production
From $2,000
Professional on-site video capture with footage-only and full-service production options.
Already a CREATIVE CTRL partner?
Production may be included in your engagement or available at preferred engagement pricing.
We’re booked?
When CREATIVE CTRL isn’t personally available, we may match your project with an approved independent creative from our Preferred Network. You’ll know who is assigned before production begins.
W · MINNESOTAYour Minnesota
Your Minnesota
Creative + Growth Partner
We work with businesses across Minneapolis, St. Paul, the Twin Cities, and Minnesota. On-location production, editing, ads, and complete content systems.
Need us on location?
Book production
Have footage?
Send it over
Need ads?
Build your creative
Want it all?
We build the system
Skip the agency sales process
READY TO LET US TAKE CREATIVE CTRL?
Think CREATIVE CTRL could be useful inside your business? Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish. We’ll figure out whether you need a project, production, or a deeper creative engagement.