No real suprise for me that Campfire NYC is generating great campaign after great campaign. Having worked hand-in-hand with them for Audi's Art of the Heist and other campaigns they have never ceased to amaze me. So I jumped when I saw a recent case study for Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" surface on a Mashable post.
It's easy to point at campaigns like this and say "see that's the future of advertising!" Because in truth it's reward is the level of risk that a brand/client/agency is willing to take. Brands as we know them are victims to years and years of shitty advertising. Therefore the default reaction to working with your agency is to bird-dog them and make sure they don't step a pica left or right of a concrete creative brief. So many clients feel that success comes directly from "predetermined" structure. More often than not a cigarette stained 'Mad Men' approach at that; filled with television, radio, calendar inserts and table tents in airport bars.
Clients watching work like this most be prepared to 'jump in the deep end' and tread the water in the pure belief that company's like Campfire NYC, GMD Studios and 42 Entertainment will create some magnificant. You simply need to let go and let these storytellers/social scientists do what they do best – a fragile dance of audience engagement, persuasion with a dash of influence. What you get is nothing short of brilliance.