Candice Jacobson

Executive Director, Integrated Marketing & Brand Communications at IHOP

Speaker

As Executive Director of Integrated Marketing & Brand Communications for IHOP, Candice Jacobson leads the brand’s internal and external communications, integrated marketing plans, philanthropic strategy and social and influencer strategy and engagement. She spearheads the brand’s connections and commitments to guests by crafting and maintaining the brand voice and narrative through all consumer, corporate, crisis, internal and franchisee communications. Her responsibilities span both brand and product launch strategic plans, executive visibility for the IHOP leadership team, issues mitigation across 1,800+ U.S. locations, and ensuring both franchisees and internal employees are armed with innovative plans and support to drive traffic in local communities.

Candice has spanned several industries in her career, absorbing a wealth of both external and internal expertise -

transitioning from Mattel toys to CKE burgers, she transferred her purposeful work with Hot Wheels, Fisher Price, and Barbie to inject new energy into brands. She transformed Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s from a brand known for bikini-clad beauties to shaping the brand narrative as a craveable food and leading from cultural influence.

Throughout her career, Candice has successfully applied her experience across verticals to solve communications challenges, leverage data, and glean insights to tell thoughtful stories. She has extensive experience in evolving heritage brands with existing affinity, quality and product and making them relevant for today’s consumer through strategic storytelling and integrated marketing, approaching challenges with a lens across holistically owned, paid, and earned ideas. Candice was recognized on PRWeek’s Power List and 40 Under 40 in 2021 and an honoree of the PR Daily and Ragan Top Women in Communications Awards in 2023.

Candice is a graduate of California State University of Long Beach with a degree in Journalism, with an emphasis in Public Relations.