While I was busy attending too many Social Media conferences, 30 or more people here at Campfire were busy doing real work for real clients.

So, as you may notice, it’s been weeks since the last post to this site (to lessen the demand for frequent posts, we’re developing a new blog-lite site; it’s just that we’ve been too busy to finish the new site. Sigh.)

Meanwhile, here’s a bit of what’s going on at Campfire over the past month or so:

• Our True Blood campaign for HBO: working with Gawker as a partner we created a campaign that sparked a lot of controversy and a whole lot of attention to the show. In fact the launch of the second season was the highest scoring HBO show (second only to the final Sopranos’ episode). If you want to know a bit about what we did, check out this excellent article in the Financial Times.

• Verizon’s FiOS: We’re currently shooting two new episodes of this tech makeover show for the East Coast regions of Verizon; it’s now called My FiOS Home: Ultimate Upgrade and focuses on a competition to win a high tech makeover. Overall we’ve created 12 episodes, 10 huge live events, a rich web experience. And the infamous Twittering Teddy DIY. Watch for the new shows in the Fall.

• Terminator Salvation: We successfully completed our campaign for Warner Brothers and the McG-directed fourth Terminator movie, involving a complex backstory which used, among many other tactics, comic book stores across the US, and leading up to the release of the film. Check out this piece on summer movies in iMedia’s publication highlighting our campaign.

• The Dr Pepper/Snapple group: We’ve been developing a whole series of marketing efforts for a variety of Dr Pepper/Snapple group brands, including Snapple, Canada Dry, Venom, and Mixers.

• Shark Week. We are about to launch a new campaign for Discovery Channel’s much beloved Shark Week. Can’t really say anything about it, except it’s really, really amazing.

• We are also working on early stage plans for ten other clients, none of who can be named, as our competitors watch our site.

• Meanwhile we’ve made some new hires, including Benita Conde as Director of Project Management, Jackie Guerra as a writer, and Lauren Bozarth as an account executive.

• And our Executive Creative Director, Mike Monello, was just picked as one of the iMedia 25, Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators.

Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: Advertising Agencies, Campfire, Discovery, Dr Pepper, Financial Times, FiOS, FT, HBO, McG, Monello, Shark Week, Snapple, Social Media, Terminator, Terminator Salvation, True Blood, Verizon

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A team from Campfire, including Gregg Hale, Brian Cain, Ryan McGrath, James Young and Jenn Mann, have been running a campaign for Terminator Salvation, due out this week from director McG. and Warner Brothers. iMedia featured our contribution to the film’s marketing in a recent piece on summer movies and their digital and interactive advertising.

Technorati Tags: Campfire, Mediapost, McG, Terminator, Warner Brothers

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Last Monday, March 15th, Campfire’s Brian Cain birthed his SXSW panel to the world and named it “You’re Living in Your Own Private Branded Experience.” Brian and the other panelists, Brian Clark, Dee Cook, Steve Peters and Lance Weiler, did more than explain and discuss a topic with their audience. They made them a part of it through an elaborate “hoax” campaign for TARP that included multiple websites, twitter accounts, protesters, SXSW security and even a little fake blood. It all came together and not so much proved a point as presented one to the crowd and allowed for an incredibly insightful and newly educated discussion during the panel’s second half.

I got into Austin a couple days later than the rest of the Campfire crew. As I wasn’t available to take part in rehearsals, I was deemed cameraman. This allowed for me to be free of the stress or performing and instead sit back and watch everything unfold. Even though it’s what we were aiming for, I was a bit shocked by how quickly and readily the audience unknowingly played along. From annoyance at Brian’s no-show, to outrage at the planted protesters who heckled and cursed at the panelists to a flood of Tweets wondering what the hell was going on. Luckily, everything eventually came to light, people settled down and dialogue ensued. All while Brian sat atop the panel stage caked in dried blood and glitter.

For a great thorough write-up of the entire panel, read this piece by another atendee at Bring Back Gimmy.

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I’m heading to Austin, TX this week for SXSW and this time I’m speaking on a panel. Come check out Suxorz ‘09: The Ten Worst Social Media Campaigns on Saturday, March 14th at 5:00 PM. Last year, this panel was one of the most lively and interactive of the whole festival and I’m honored to be sitting on the panel with Zadi Diaz from Epic Fu, Jeff Jarvis from Buzz Machine, and Sarah Smith from Wonkette. Moderator Henry Copeland of BlogAds promises to throw firecrackers into the social media bonfire and keep things lively.

And don’t forget about Campfire Creative Director Brian Cain’s panel,You’re Living in Your Own Private Branded Entertainment Experience, which I promise will be the most unusual panel you’ll see at SXSW.

I’m looking forward to meeting people and eating BBQ so if you are going and want to connect, drop me a note mmonello (at) campfirenyc (dot) com or contact me through my Twitter account. Hope to see you there.

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As part of Social Media Week, Campfire will be hosting a lively conversation between Michael Galpert of Aviary and Scott Belsky of Behance today, Monday, Feb 9, at 5 pm. The discussion will be about the creative process and how to make it more social. Audience participation will be welcome so we hope you can attend.

The session runs from 5 pm to 7 pm and our address is 62 White Street, near Broadway, in TriBeCa..

Here’s a bit about our two participants:

Michael Galpert - Founder, Aviary. Michael is one of the founders of Aviary. He currently sits on the advisory board for Web 2.0 Expo New York, is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. He helps organize Barcamp New York and is actively involved with the NYC-based tech community group NextNY.

Scott Belsky - Founder, Behance. Scott has committed his professional life to help organize creative individuals, teams, and networks. Scott is the founder of Behance, a company that develops products and services that boost productivity in the Creative Professional Community.

Session info here

Technorati Tags: Campfire, social media

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Technorati Tags: imagery, Obama, Inauguration

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This weekend, January 17 & 18, 2008 Armacham Technology Corporation will sponsor a FEAR LAB event at 33rd Street & 6th Avenue outside a GameStop store in New York City. Armacham will be performing Level III testing of their F.E.A.R. 2 psycho-metric testing.

The gaming blogger community will be in attendance and allowed to test the FEAR LAB while live-blogging their experience. Local gaming fans are also invited to take part in the event.

Testing will take place on both Saturday and Sunday from 11am – 7pm. Please visit Armacham’s website, for further information. Click anything at http://armacham.com/ and be patient…

Technorati Tags: Gaming, marketing, Fear 2, Fear2

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Pics from our bowling retreat on Dec. 16th.

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Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Campfire Receives 2008 New York Award

U.S. Local Business Association’s Award Plaque Honors the Achievement

WASHINGTON D.C., December 9, 2008 — Campfire has been selected for the 2008 New York Award in the Campgrounds category by the U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA).

The USLBA “Best of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses throughout the country. Each year, the USLBA identifies companies that they believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to choose the winners in each category. The 2008 USLBA Award Program focused on quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered both internally by the USLBA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA)
U.S. Local Business Association (USLBA) is a Washington D.C. based organization funded by local businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of USLBA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and advertising.

The USLBA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups, professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.

Technorati Tags: Award Shows, Campfire

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MyHome2.0, Campfire and Verizon’s makeover show for FiOS got some some more attention this week, first via Adweek and the Buzz Awards.

See the whole article here.

And Adweek also published a piece by Beth Mulhern, one of the key Verizon executives, on the MyHome2.0 project:

See the whole article here

Technorati Tags: Adweek, Award Shows, FiOS, Mulhern, MyHome2.0, social media, Verizon

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