Campfire was built to help brands matter in culture
Campfire is a creative-led influencer marketing agency based at Salford Quays in Greater Manchester, founded in 2019 by Joe Gradwell and Alex Brown. We started with one belief: that social media would change how culture moves, how people discover things and how they choose which brands to buy from. Today we're a team of 60+ people working with beauty, lifestyle and FMCG brands.
How did Campfire start?
Campfire started in the spare room of a Manchester flat. Joe and Alex were spending their evenings on the same apps their future clients' customers used, and they could see that the brands doing well there weren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They were the ones that understood the culture.
That idea became Campfire. The first work was bold creative ideas and data-led social strategy, built in that spare room. Since then the team has grown to more than 60 people, with specialists in creators, content, paid media, social commerce and strategy, and with tools of our own in the Cultural Intelligence Suite. The curiosity and pace of those early days are still how we work.
What does Campfire believe?
These are the beliefs behind every service we offer and every tool we've built.
Social media is where culture happens.
The brands that win on social take part in the conversations their audiences are already having, rather than using it to broadcast. We've built every service and tool we own around that.
Data and instinct work together.
The Cultural Intelligence Suite tells us what's worth making. Our team's creative instinct decides how to make it. One without the other gives you either dull strategy or beautiful work nobody needed.
The work has to be good.
Hitting the KPI matters, and so does the work itself: a sharp idea, a tight strategy and execution the brand is proud to put its name to. The brands we work with, and their customers, deserve that.
Brands can do more than sell.
Our best programmes have changed how people see a brand, built real communities and made people feel something they didn't feel before. That's what we aim for with every client.
Where we’re going
Our misson
Build the world's leading social-first agency for beauty, lifestyle and FMCG.
That means being the team these brands call when culture moves, because we've shown we can turn it into commercial results.
Our vision
Transform beauty, lifestyle and FMCG brands into cultural icons.
Through data-led, social-first storytelling, and creative work that makes people feel something about a brand they didn't feel before.
Who founded Campfire?
Joe Gradwell and Alex Brown started Campfire because they could see marketing moving away from polished perfection and towards real connection, where the most effective message is often a creator who loves a product, talking to an audience that trusts them.
Joe Gradwell
Alex Brown
Who leads Campfire today?
Joe and Alex started Campfire, and the leadership team has built it into what it is today. Across strategy, creative, client services, creator marketing, growth and finance, they're the people our clients rely on for some of the biggest commercial moments of their year.
Joe Gradwell
Alex Brown
Jim Brigden
Amanda Scott
Paul Cooper
Jade Seddon
Nicola Charlton
Kate Roberts
Catrina Bannon
Gina Deen
Rachael Crawford
Greta Andrejevaite
Could your brand be next?
Tell us what you're launching, or what isn't working, and we'll come back with how we'd approach it.