Philosophy
Old school advertising’s form and function got gutshot sometime back in the 90’s. That thrashing and wailing you see in banner ads, magazines, and TV spots these days? That’s the death throes, baby. Like Mister Yeats said, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.”
That’s where we come in.
Campfire is in the branded entertainment business. We use the tactics of new media to tell the stories that people want to be a part of. We like to grab an audience and keep them interested, keep them guessing and keep them coming back for more. A big part of that is being flexible enough to use real-time audience feedback to keep our stories relevant.
Our campaigns are alive, able to change and evolve.
So yes, you can call it branded entertainment, but the real trick in that overused phrase is making sure both words have equal power. First and foremost, you’ve got to get an audience’s attention and keep it. Do that and the rest will sell itself.
Not the typical ad agency you were expecting? Well we’re not the typical ad crew. Look around our offices and you’ll find outsider artists, haunted house creators, science writers, music geeks and even the guys that made the Blair Witch Project. If you’re going to make our style of advertising work then you’ve got to go outside tradition.
And we’ve got the deeds to back up the smacktalk.
Take Audi for instance. We created a three-month alternate reality game that drove our audience deep into the world of art thieves and the strange people who chase them. Along the way they got up close and personal with the brand new A3.
For Verizon’s FiOS program we had to cut through the advertising clutter and make people understand a complex product. We solved the issue by taking the message straight to the customers through a series of neighborhood block parties and a local TV show that showcased Fios home makeovers. We got up close, we got personal and we got attention.
Need more evidence? Call up Jeremiah at 212-612-9600 and he’ll be happy to lay it out for you. What we do is unconventional, and unusual. Yet, in every case, the clients get exactly what they were looking for: unparalleled success.
