merit
2017
Portland, ME & Boston, MA
Paid Media: Strategy, Planning, and Buying
10
Underdog
We reject the idea that media buying is a black box. In an industry addicted to opacity and waste, we pull back the curtain: showing clients exactly where their dollars go, what impact those dollars have, and how to optimize for results and responsibility. We also refuse the false tradeoff between performance and purpose. We prove every day that campaigns with lower carbon footprints and greater community impact actually perform better.
We built Campfire around transparency, curiosity, and belonging. Independence lets us design a process that’s relationship-first, where listening deeply to clients, communities, and partners shapes every plan. We call it “gathering around the fire.” A collaborative, iterative space where strategy is rooted in data, but never divorced from human connection. Our culture thrives because we’re free to live our values without compromise.
And as a certified B Corp, we also believe in taking good care of our workers and respecting work life balance which is why we not only have generous PTO policy, but also offer paid time off for volunteering. The corporate world crushes souls and spits people out, we want to build our folks up and we can because we consider all stakeholders in our business (our workers, communities, clients, and the very planet we call home) not share holder primacy like the big holdcos.
Independence means we don’t answer to shareholders, only to clients and our conscience. That freedom has allowed us to:
Integrate impact directly into media strategies, measuring carbon footprints alongside ROAS.
Support independent journalism by intentionally directing ad spend to trusted local news outlets when we can.
Help values-aligned brands punch above their weight, from B Corps to challenger startups, competing with budgets many times their size.
In terms of the numbers; since our founding in 2017 we have donated over $40,000 to local nonprofit orgs, volunteered over 500 hours, not to mention an abundance of wins on behalf of our clients. Just to name a few, 27% increase in new hires for a client, 53% increase in qualified leads, 195% ROAS for an impact-led coffee brand, 25% increase in purchase consideration for a national franchise, 51% increase in brand awareness, and so much more.
We’re also working alongside Scope3 to pilot brand safety and carbon emission measurement, and are working to build our own network of direct to publisher MarTech to help buyers like us purchase more directly from publishers so we can help keep a healthy media ecosystem alive. There’s a lot more that we got cook’n! We’re also a Certified B Corp, 1% for the Planet Member, and member of Ad Net Zero.
Campfire was born from a simple belief: media can, and should, work better for brands, for people, and for the planet.
Our founder, Chris Marine, started his career as a broadcast journalist, where some days he had every resource at his fingertips, and others he was running on grit and duct tape. That contrast sparked his curiosity about how stations made money and led him into the world of media sales. Chris rose quickly, becoming a top rep for some of the largest media conglomerates. But he also saw the cracks: clients were often boxed into limited options, transparency was scarce, and too much ad spend disappeared into systems that didn’t serve brands or society.
Chris knew media could be different. In 2017, he launched Dirigo Collective (now Campfire Consulting) with the conviction that brands deserve clarity, choice, and strategies aligned with their purpose.
Today, we carry forward that spirit of curiosity and integrity. Our theory of change is simple: when media is planned with transparency and accountability, it drives better results for brands while fueling the kind of journalism and storytelling society needs to thrive. Every dollar spent has a ripple effect and we’re here to make sure those ripples build a better future.
Our biggest challenge has been educating the market that media doesn’t have to be opaque and it shouldn’t be reduced to chasing cheap CPMs or vanity metrics. Too often, brands assume the old ways are “just how it’s done,” or they get distracted by surface-level numbers that don’t translate into growth. A common pattern we see is clients investing heavily in creative, only to treat media as an afterthought, missing the opportunity to make creative and placement work in concert.
We’ve tackled this by partnering with our fellow indie creatives, and by building trust through data and storytelling, proving with every campaign that smarter, values-driven media not only pays for itself but delivers outsized results.
We believe the future of our industry isn’t just independent, it’s interdependent. The real power of indie agencies lies in how we collaborate, share knowledge, and push one another forward. Just as the B Corp community declares its interdependence, we know no single agency can reshape this industry alone.
Independence gives us the freedom to act with integrity; interdependence gives us the strength to transform systems. At Campfire, our role is to model what happens when media is transparent, values-driven, and accountable to people and planet. And we see our fellow indie agencies as allies, each of us adding sparks to a collective fire that’s brighter, more diverse, and more resilient than anything any holding company could ever build.
