Campfire, the New York-based brand entertainment shop which has turned out notable campaigns for Sega, Levi’s, Audi, Pontiac, Verizon, HBO, and Discovery Channel since its launch in 2006, has acquired The Advance Guard, one of the first marketing consultancies to focus on the consumer conversation side of emerging technology and community platforms.
The Advance Guard co-founders Steve Coulson and C.C. Chapman will join Campfire’s executive team of partners, Steve Wax, Mike Monello, Greg Hale, and Jeremiah Rosen, as creative directors. Financial terms of the acquisition are undisclosed. The Guard’s 2008 billings approximate $1 million, while Campfire’s annual billings are estimated at $7 million. The merging of the two companies will bring Campfire to a total staff of 25.
Since its own inception in ’07, The Advance Guard has collaborated with Campfire on several campaigns including HBO’s “True Blood” viral fare; Verizon FIOS’s original TV makeover series, My Home 2.0; Discovery’s “Shark Week” adventure marketing; and Snapple’s latest digital ‘Real Facts’ initiative. These successful collaborations led to Campfire’s decision to buy The Advance Guard.
Coulson and Chapman founded The Advance Guard to fill a void in the realm of social media. Coulson comes from a rich alternative media background. As an agency director at both JWT and McCann Erickson, he has a portfolio that includes award winning brand work for the likes of DeBeers, Ford, Smirnoff and Unilever. He is also known for creating the successful pop culture blog www.yesbutnobutyes.com, which to-date feeds a community of up to 1 million readers per month.
Chapman, whose background is in social engagement, is a pioneer in podcasting and new media As the host of the famed weekly podcast, Managing the Gray, Chapman educates people on how to best leverage the social media landscape.
One of The Advance Guard’s earliest successes was a pioneering social media experiment for American Eagle Outfitters. This led to work for the likes of Coca-Cola, Warner Brothers, and St Martin’s Press.
Campfire’s Monello described Coulson and Chapman as being expert “navigators behind the social media scene who make transmedia storytelling possible. We think cross-platform, they execute cross-platform. We create addictive and entertaining content, and they disseminate it strategically based on research and analytics. It’s a perfect match that brings Campfire completely full circle and full service.”
Chapman related that “brands should be managing their own conversations–and the trend toward bringing on experts to help them do that will continue to grow. Both The Advance Guard and Campfire were built to assist brands in precisely this way.”
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles.
Nakamura Whitehouse, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years.
Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation.
EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.”
Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.”
34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More