Campfire Names Jeremiah Rosen Company President
February 1, 2010
Rosen, promoted from Partner & Director of Accounts to President, will have an expanded role in creative shop
NEW YORK, February 1, 2010 — Campfire, the New York City-based marketing agency, has appointed Jeremiah Rosen its first president. Having served as Partner & Director of Accounts for four years, Rosen will now officially oversee Campfire’s business operations.
Managing Partner Steve Wax explained, “I’ve enjoyed working with Jeremiah as a partner for the past three years. He’s proven time and again that he’s a savvy professional and a great leader. He’ll make an excellent president and I know he’ll make sure we continue to stay ahead of the pack.”
The company partners came to the decision to promote Rosen late last week. As Rosen said: “Campfire has grown from four to 24 employees in the last three years—at this point, it makes sense for us to have a company president: someone our employees, clients, and prospective clients can look to for leadership and clarity.”
Campfire, which counts HBO, Dr Pepper Snapple Group, and Verizon among its clients, has gained notoriety for building long-term, multi-platform marketing programs that entertain and engage fans. Advertising Age recently recognized the company’s campaign for Sega’s Beta-7 video game as one of the “10 Best Non-TV Campaigns” of the decade.
Before he joined Campfire, Rosen worked on the Nike and Coca-Cola accounts for Wieden + Kennedy. He also spent time at DCODE, N.W. Ayer & Partners, and Leftfield Interactive in business development and client service capacities.
Mike Monello, a founding partner and Campfire’s Executive Creative Director, said that Rosen’s varied experience contributed to the partners’ decision. According to Monello, “Jeremiah’s done it all. He’s worked for big agencies, startups, and dot-coms. He’s got a law degree and a master’s in communications. Jeremiah is a new breed of agency president, and we’re sure he’ll lead Campfire to great success.”
Ad Age Recognizes Campfire on "Best of Decade" List
December 22, 2009
Ad Age recently cited our Beta-7 campaign for Sega as one of the “10 Best Non-TV Campaigns” of the Decade. It’s been close to 7 years since we created Beta-7, and it’s amazing to know that it’s still receiving salutations to this day. Check out what Ad Age had to say here, and learn a bit more about Beta-7 by watching our case study on the work section of the Campfire website.
Campfire Wins Four IAB MIXX Awards for Work on HBO's True Blood
September 24, 2009
Campfire's True Blood: Revelation Campaign Wins Best Product Launch, Best Digital Integration, More.
NEW YORK, September 24, 2009 — Campfire, the New York based marketing shop, took home four awards on Tuesday night at the International Advertising Bureau's MIXX Awards for work on HBO's True Blood. At a ceremony dedicated to highlighting the best of the best in social media, branding, and interactive advertising, Campfire, along with collaborators Deep Focus and …and company, won awards in all four categories in which it was nominated: two Golds for Product Launch and Digital Integration; a Silver for Social Marketing; and a Bronze for Interactive Video.
Campfire used a rich transmedia approach for True Blood's marketing launch well in advance of the show's debut. The company began by sending anonymous mailers with cryptic puzzles to well-known bloggers and horror and vampire superfans, many of whom shared the secretive packages with their readers.
Once decoded, the puzzles led bloggers to a secret vampire-only website containing stories and videos rich in the vampire mythology of the show. Early readers engaged deeply in the vampire lore, interacting with the community of "out of the coffin" vampires.
Marla Aaron of the IAB asserted that Campfire "enabled a deeper engagement with the show from the outset and built an early and loyal audience among a harder to reach and more sophisticated audience segment."
Campfire also sparked interest in the show by seeding vampire content and the True Blood brand in unexpected places. Tru Blood branded delivery trucks were sent to various cities and bottles of Tru Blood were placed in stores. A vampire rights debate was orchestrated on BloodCopy, one of the campaign's key blogs, and a comic book was released in partnership with Top Cow presenting further backstory.
According to Campfire's James Young, marketing efforts that play out in tandem lead to outstanding product launches. "Providing different access points for different consumers makes a story-based campaign successful. There are the people who engage very deeply—in this case, the hardcore vampire fans; then the people curious enough to learn a little more; and finally, the people who don't engage directly but who see Tru Blood in stores or hear a friend talking about vampire rights."
"From the start, we knew this was just so much bigger than print ads and 30-second spots. We wanted a campaign that's as rich as the series," said Zach Enterlin, VP of Advertising and Promotion for HBO. "The whole campaign has been about popping through in a really crowded environment and using promotional content to tell a story."
After a four-month-long campaign, more than two million viewers watched the show's first episode, a number that steadily rose to nearly seven million. True Blood is now the second most watched show in HBO history, after The Sopranos.
Alan Ball, creator of True Blood and Six Feet Under, declared: "This marketing plan exceeded my wildest dreams."
September 24, 2009. New York.
Campfire Brings Fear to the Oceans
July 9, 2009
Frenzied Waters, Campfire’s big summer campaign for Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, was a huge success. Bloggers, radio personalities and the general public hunted for mysterious “Shark Attack” capsules, capsules that contained the artifacts of oceanic tragedies. Some from times past, some that hit closer to home than anyone could have imagined.
Read the full story here.
AP Covers Campfire's HBO/Gawker Campaign
June 28, 2009
Campfire’s trans-media advertising campaign for the second season of HBO’s True Blood continues to gather a ton of attention. The in-story acquisition of vampire news blog BloodCopy by the Gawker network has gotten a lot of people talking and has now made its way into the Associated Press news wire. Click here to read the full story.
The Financial Times Covers Campfire's Recent True Blood Campaign
June 10, 2009
Campfire’s own Jeremiah Rosen was recently interviewed by the Financial Times as part of an in-depth piece on our newest campaign for Season Two of HBO’s True Blood. On top of the partnership with Gawker media that is helping to redefine what an “ad buy” can be, the article also covers the brand partnerships, facilitated by partner agencies with the likes of Gillette, Harley Davidson and AM New York. Read the full article here (free registration required).
My Home 2.0 News!
December 1, 2008
MyHome2.0, Campfire and Verizon’s makeover show for FiOS got some some more attention this week, first via Adweek and the Buzz Awards.
And Adweek also published a piece by Beth Mulhern, one of the key Verizon executives, on the MyHome2.0 project:
Campfire Wins Best Integrated Campaign at ad:tech
July 15, 2008
Hey everyone. We're proud to announce that our HBO True Blood campaign has just won Best Integrated Campaign at the 2009 ad:tech Awards!
ad:tech has been showcasing the best of the best when it comes to digital marketing for over a decade now, and we're definitely honored that they've decided to show us some love.
If you guys want to learn more about our "award-winning" campaign (kind of rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?), feel free to click here.
Creativity Magazine on True Blood
August 5, 2008
Creativity Magazine has a lengthy story on our True Blood campaign for HBO, focusing on the storytelling aspects:
Expanding the universe of an existing property, whether a film or TV show, further through deeper stories involving marginal characters is not a new type of storytelling, witness the cottage industry of Star Wars and Star Trek literature. But True Blood’s is an exceptional case in that the peripheral mythology has been written by an agency. The success of Campfire’s latest creation is obviously based on the storytelling prowess of Cain and Hale, along with the agency’s respect for the overall artistic integrity of the show.
A little more press for True Blood
July 18, 2008
You Have Been Warned!
July 15, 2008
The New York Times featured a story about Campfire’s latest work for HBO in its July 15th edition. The article, “The Vampires Are Coming, but Only After Months of Warnings”, was written by Douglas Quenqua and touches on how HBO and Campfire have been stirring up fans for “True Blood,” HBO’s new Alan Ball series. Along with a great introduction of Campfire’s doings so far, the piece also includes a great preview of what to expect from the campaign in the months to come.
Everyone's loving My Home 2.0's Twittering Teddy!
June 17, 2008
Our Verizon Fios Gurus transformed an animatronic bear into a social networking, live streaming phenomenon.
Fast Company story on Campfire
December 19, 2007
The November issue of Fast Company has an in-depth story on Campfire, written by Danielle Sacks. Danielle spent two days in Orlando with Gregg and I, and a day in Detroit with us and the gang from Leo Burnett Detroit, sitting in on a brainstorm session for our current Pontiac campaign. During that time, Danielle drilled down deep. She heard the entire story behind Blair Witch, asked incredibly detailed questions about all our past campaigns, and immersed herself in what we were doing with Pontiac. Even the fact checking process was intense, but in the end I believe she explains what we do and why we do it better than anyone, including ourselves. Hell, I’ve been trying to explain my work to my parents for years, and after my Dad read the story he said “I think I finally understand what it is you do. So thanks for the amazing story, Danielle, and I’ll forgive you for calling me a “a hefty 37-year-old with bulbous hazel eyes.” Eventually.
FiOS! Coming To A 'Burb Near You
October 1, 2007
Campfire’s efforts towards Verizon FiOS grabs attention from AdWeek and local regions across the NorthEast. The new technology makeover TV show along with block parties and website shows promise in reaching consumers through a marketing makeover.