merit
Alberto Garcia Vazquez, Benn Marine, Chris Marine, Pip Kolmar, Ppalak Shah, Kelly Gadsby, David Gogel,
Programming Developer Intern, Director of Impact, CEO/Founder, Heads of Strategy, Media buyer, Director of Client Growth
Underdog
The Campfire Connect team is not only reimagining how media is bought, we are actively building the technology to make it possible. We are creating a martech platform and marketplace that supports buyers in going direct, giving them a clear, efficient way to discover and partner with independent publishers.
This isn’t theory; it’s a tangible system in development. Within Campfire Connect, buyers will find unique opportunities from independent media outlets, placements they can’t access through traditional programmatic pipelines. By curating these direct relationships, the platform enables more creative collaboration, strengthens brand safety, and channels investment into the publishers who sustain our local communities and diverse storytelling ecosystems.
Our independence allows us to take on this work without compromise, and our interdependence with publishers means the platform grows stronger every day. The impact is twofold: buyers get smarter, safer, and more authentic results, while independent publishers receive the resources they need to thrive.
What makes Campfire Connect distinctly indie is the mindset behind it. We’re not waiting for holding companies or tech giants to fix what’s broken, we’re building the tools ourselves, rooted in transparency, creativity, and community. This project reflects the indie ethos of scrappiness, collaboration, and purpose: taking risks others won’t, because we believe in a better way. By championing direct relationships and amplifying independent voices, we’re proving that small teams with big conviction can reshape an industry.
We’re challenging the industry’s obsession with walled gardens, vanity metrics, and one-sided vendor relationships. Campfire Connect flips the script: giving brands a direct line to publishers, prioritizing high-quality inventory, and measuring not just impressions, but outcomes and impacts. In a world where most agencies treat media as a commodity, we treat it as a lever for connection, growth, and good.
What makes Campfire Connect impactful is the team behind it. We’re building a martech platform while simultaneously running campaigns for clients and it’s that dual perspective that sets our work apart. Every insight from the field informs the technology we’re creating, ensuring it’s grounded in real buyer needs and publisher opportunities.
Our day-to-day client work keeps us focused on results, but our platform work pushes us to think bigger about how to make direct buying easier, safer, and more meaningful. By channeling our ethos into both, we’re showing that indie agencies don’t just service accounts; we create new infrastructure to shape the future of media itself.
What doesn’t show up on LinkedIn is the way this team co-creates. Campfire Connect is being built not just by strategists and buyers, but by a collective of interns, partners, and clients who are testing, shaping, and sharpening it along the way. That openness to collaboration is our secret ingredient.
The turning point came when we realized that no existing tool could align media transparency with our theory of change. We could either keep waiting for someone else to fix the system or build it ourselves. Campfire Connect was the result of choosing to act.
Campfire Connect has inspired peers in the indie agency community to think differently about their own role in media planning. By sharing our journey openly, we’ve sparked conversations about what transparency could look like industry-wide and how indie agencies, working together, can lead the shift.
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