Responsibly Different™

Celebrating Media's INTERdependence for Responsibly Different's 5 Year Anniversary

• Campfire Consulting

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On the five-year anniversary of Responsibly Different™, we're diving deep into why healthy media ecosystems matter—not just for brands, but for the very fabric of our communities and democracy. Our Founder Chris and Impact Director Benn reflect on the last 5 years of the podcast and the next chapter of the Responsibly Different™ podcast.

Did you know counties that lose their local newspapers see a 2-3% drop in voter turnout? Or that 75% of Americans trust local news compared to only 58% who trust national outlets? As these vital information sources struggle financially, the ripple effects touch everything from civic engagement to community health outcomes.

The podcast explores how programmatic buying, while efficient, often delivers just pennies on the dollar to publishers compared to direct relationships. This financial reality has forced newsrooms to stretch resources dangerously thin, cutting staff and replacing local content with syndicated material. Host Chris Marine shares firsthand experiences from his early career in journalism, painting a vivid picture of what happens when newsrooms lack adequate funding.

We're examining the tension between efficiency and responsibility in media planning. While direct publisher relationships require more time and human interaction, they create stronger partnerships, better placements, and support vital community resources. However, the traditional marketing timeline—where media is treated as the last box to check—makes this approach difficult to execute effectively.

The conversation shifts to how AI and technology advancements are enabling more relevant, contextual messaging that respects audience mindsets throughout their day. Rather than viewing these tools as replacements for human judgment, we see them as opportunities to free marketers to focus on the ethical dimensions of their work.

Listen now to join our exploration of media's role in society and how brands can leverage their advertising investments as a force for good while achieving business objectives. Subscribe to Fireside for more conversations about responsible media practices that strengthen rather than deplete our information ecosystem.

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Visit the Responsibly Different™ Shop where 50% of all profits go back to nonprofit organizations. Wear your spark on your sleeve.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Fireside, a responsibly different podcast, where we spark candid conversations about media investments and the strategies shaping the way we connect. All right, chris, super excited to be chatting with you today because today is the five-year anniversary of the Responsibly Different podcast. Yay, yay, right.

Speaker 2:

Nice work to you. This was your brainchild.

Speaker 1:

Well, teamwork makes the dream work, sir.

Speaker 1:

But what's interesting is, this podcast started as a way to explore B Corp certification and kind of document our journey, and then it has evolved over the years to really lifting up B Corps and the work that they're doing and exploring business as a force for good, and all of that, and for listeners who've been tuning in in 2025, you've noticed, probably, that we are going deeper into our roots as a media agency, and it feels like we're starting a new impact journey this year, which is really exciting, about trying to find and identify ways that we can really be leveraging media specifically as a force for good, as it pertains to the social impact that we're having on communities, as well as working to be able to most accurately track the carbon footprint of some of these campaigns.

Speaker 1:

And so what I was hoping to talk to you today about, Chris, is really why one of the things that we talk about is the importance of trying to keep our media ecosystems healthy, and what that means for both brands and for our communities. I'm curious, if you want to, if you have thoughts you want to jump into there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think for a long time.

Speaker 2:

First is to address like maybe for folks following along our journey, it did take a while, it took a lot of reflection for us to get to the point to understand that we have put so much emphasis on the impact that we have across the communities that we serve, where we're based, and also thinking about the communities that our clients serve that we were so focused for so long on thinking that in order to do good in the world, we had to be amplifying the work of other people's businesses and how they were doing good, that somewhere in the middle we kind of lost focus on the fact that we as an organization, by remaining healthy and in business, can also have a really strong ripple effect. So I think that's a helpful thing to reflect on for folks, because I think so much of the work from brands that are doing the deep work in their community can often forget about their own individualized impact and thinking that they have to be thinking of this collective action outside of their own sphere, which is very important, but just not to forget about. Just by being in existence you can do a lot of good, and that's what really brought us to this point of thinking about how, instead of just solely focusing on making sure that we're amplifying the stories of the brand partners that we have, how can we be having a greater impact? And, yes, the health of our communities are so dependent on the role that media plays? Journalism is and has always been.

Speaker 2:

From the start of our country, journalism has been an important part of the foundation of a healthy, fair, free, democratic society. So it only makes sense that we should be thinking of as an organization that helps plan, buy and strategize where brands' media investments are going, that they're understanding not just their business KPIs and their business outcomes but also the outcomes from where their dollars are going. And as someone that worked in news at the start of my career, I know I've seen it. I've seen it firsthand when there are good sales quarters and bad sales quarters and what that does for resourcing. I'm just curious can you speak to that a sales quarters and what that does for resourcing?

Speaker 1:

I'm just curious can you speak to that a little bit on what that was like as a journalist and seeing that kind of ebb and flow of? Dollars in and or feast, or famine, if you will.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean when I was starting my career it was in 2000, end of 2009, 2010. And I was working at NBC affiliate station and that was really at the start of the era that people will currently see when they watch any broadcast news, which is it was the beginning of the multimedia journalist role. So I was an associate producer so I'd help the producer put together the shows, put together the newscasts, which meant accumulating, looking at the information that reporters were bringing in, looking at the national news wires, seeing what was coming in, stacking a newscast to make sure that we were hitting on what we believed was a good run of show for folks. So thinking of local and then national, and then how those national stories come back to the local area. And then, of course, your weather, your sports, and then that block D was always can we leave people feeling a little bit better? So that's always those like nice fluff pieces that people will always see.

Speaker 2:

And as a multimedia journalist at the beginning of that and I didn't quite realize the full impact of it at that time because it was just the way that the newsroom was going in but I was one of the first reporters in the newsroom I was servicing in, where I would go out. I would be assigned the story, go out, find the facts around the story. I would shoot the video for the story. I would come back, write the story, edit the story with the video, record it and then, if it was a package, I'd be recording it, editing it, shipping and then it would go on there. Or if it was something where we'd live wrap, I would be in front of the camera introducing it with the anchor and then coming out of the story and what it looked like was just the flow of resources. It was. It's uh, you know, and are we getting new equipment? Are we? Is equipment that's going bad? Is it going to get replaced? And that equipment, when you are trying to cover numerous stories, um, in a day, uh, if your equipment fails, you really start noticing it, because that can literally be did you get the story or not? And especially in broadcast, you're always working with cameras, always working with mics. Most importantly, you're working with other people.

Speaker 2:

So it was a time where the newsroom was scaling back on resourcing of humans, because it was the beginning of the multimedia journalist, which was covering what used to be numerous roles, or used to be more videographers, with a reporter, and then there'd be, you know, more producers, more associate producers. But now, when I was serving there, and it's only gotten more stretched thin resources wise, because in a broadcast newsroom, for example, they're not just building something for the 6pm news, they know that news, once it's fact check and valid, needs to go out around the clock and they're building things not just for broadcast but for their digital channels, for their social channels now, for their streaming channels. And at the time when I was there, social was really just kind of like an afterthought. It was at the beginning of trying to understand what to do with Facebook. We would, you know, you'd build your story for broadcast and then you would, you know, you'd have to kind of paraphrase it down, upload the video for the website, and then it was like, oh, and you know, get something on the social feed, now it's of the utmost important.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, it was a matter of sometimes also I would work 3 pm, I would help associate, produce the evening newscasts, help report for the 11 o'clock newscasts, and then sometimes, because there just weren't enough humans, if one person called out because there aren't as many folks, it would be like hey and Chris, do you want to stay for the morning newscast, so I'd go back, sleep for two hours, two and a half hours, come back at 2.30 in the morning, start preparing for the at the time the 4.30 was just starting the 4.30 am news and then you work until eight.

Speaker 2:

So I mean you have a full, full day and evening and and you contribute wherever you can because resources, everyone needs resources, you need people, you need equipment, and it's discouraging, it's discouraging to see how people are continuing to be stretched thin in our industry. And I say our industry because I really do look at anyone who is responsible for advertising and media dollars is responsible for the health of journalism and entertainment radio stations. I mean, if people listen to their local radio station, listen how much of that is syndicated now and how much of it is actually local. And listen how much of that is syndicated now and how much of it is actually local, it's because they aren't staffing locally as much. That has an impact.

Speaker 2:

That has an impact when a lot of these radio stations aren't just your fun morning radio hosts in the morning making you laugh, smile on your way into work. They're doing things in the community. They're running, they're doing fundraisers for cancer, they're doing food drives, they're across the community contributing no-transcript journalism and information and that role in our democracy it's also just entertainment fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's super real, I mean.

Speaker 1:

And speaking to that, I mean you know, we are seeing local newsrooms dry up right, whether they're print or broadcast radio, all of those things, and it's interesting.

Speaker 1:

So I just was looking at some studies and there's some research out of Duke University that found that counties that lost local newspapers saw a two to three percent drop in voter turnout. Now a lot of elections are won within that margin. So you think about the ripple out, the ripple effect of the consequences of losing local news. And then even, like you know, we think about representation too, and thinking about having diverse voices and having those independent, even if it's just entertainment, how important that is to communities. I'm curious so something that we've been talking about are trying to find ways where and also I think it'd be important to explain to folks who maybe aren't familiar how much friction there currently is in buying direct and why we've been talking so much about trying to figure out where and how we can buy direct more frequently to help support these smaller publishers. Can you talk a little bit about what that process currently looks like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I mean, it was in about the early aughts that programmatic buying, which is a method of buying media, came up, and it was a way to streamline and buy more media at scale and with the idea of reaching a more targeted audience. Now there's been a lot of debate over the years of how effective that's actually been. We run a lot of programmatic media here at Campfire and we do see effective business results come from it. But it's really important to note that when we buy programmatically, when anyone buys programmatically pennies on the dollar go to the publisher or network that you're buying. So some people may say well, I'm going to buy our local. You know our fill in the blank market X that I'm investing into to try to reach an audience Instead of going direct to publisher. I'm going to buy that programmatically. I'm going to put it in my list of sites that I want to serve on. That's great. It makes the role of the planning and buying team a heck of a whole lot easier. However, again, pennies, pennies on the dollar go to that. It's very similar to what people have followed with what happened to the music industry when music started getting distributed, apple taking their cut and everything, and you heard about the disparities between what musicians used to get versus what they get now. It's the same exact thing when planning and buying media. So there is a lot of friction and a lot of publishers are starting to put their foot down and saying that we have to get back to the point where we have relationships with the folks who are responsible for those brand dollars, not just so they can better monetize what they have to offer, but also a lot of good could come from those relationships. I mean, I think a lot of people forget that yes, it is more work and effort to have those direct-to-publisher relationships, but with that, if you're comparing CPMs cost per thousand, which is one of the most common Say you're looking for an awareness campaign, that you're buying media based on comparing CPMs campaign, that you're buying media based on comparing CPMs, sure, you might be looking at buying remnant inventory programmatically through radio station, broadcast station, newspaper, whatever website X for $2 to $3, versus when you buy it directly from the publisher. They're going to charge you $6, $7, $8 for the same banner ad to run. But there's an opportunity to go deeper and share with that publisher and network that you're working with of here's my goal from this campaign and they will work with you. They will throw you additional added value.

Speaker 2:

And many of the publishers that I'm hearing was just at a conference in Vegas a few weeks ago Programmaticio, and there were some publishers that were stating there that they're going to start deprioritizing any buys that come in programmatically. So they're going to prioritize first. They're going to be tiering out First tier of priority is anyone that's coming in direct to publisher. Now, first tier of priority is anyone that's coming in direct to publisher. Second tier, programmatic, and then kind of go down a line of the several different ways that you can buy media and that's important to know and we've seen that on the broadcast side, we've seen that on multiple different fronts before ourselves as we buy both programmatically and we still buy a lot of direct to publisher. So I think that answered your question in a really roundabout way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, definitely. I mean because I think that understanding that concept of buying direct versus buying programmatically is important, especially when we talk about the impacts on these publishers and the amount of dollars they're able to bring in, Because that's how these folks stay alive, right, I mean it's it's it's publisher, cause folks aren't. I saw another stat Hold on, Let me see if I have it handy here about uh, okay, here we go. This is from a 2023 Reuters Institute report. Less than 15% of Americans pay for news, despite growing concern about misinformation, Right, despite growing concern about misinformation, right? So back when we all used to like subscribe to things and pay for our news, now people aren't. They're expecting it for free. So all of that's shifting to advertising dollars, right? Am I exaggerating here? Would you say that's accurate?

Speaker 2:

No, unfortunately, most of the industry is still monetizing off of ad dollars. So people both consumers who are in our business and not can say they hate advertising. But it's responsible for a lot of the information, entertainment that you receive today and that's just so. That's the nature of where it's at. There needs to be a reckoning and it's unfortunate to see. We had a really good episode here on Fireside a few weeks ago about a newspaper in Midcoast Maine where they started a cafe. So in newspapers more of them are doing that. We have another friend who has just featured on CBS National News about their newspaper down in Texas that they're doing a similar thing. They had to open up a cafe, a shop, just to keep this paper alive, to find other ways. So people are getting crafty, but for the most part advertising and getting a piece of those budgets is what's keeping them afloat.

Speaker 2:

And it's really important too, because I'm not going to say that us at Campfire. You're perfect, everything's a work in progress and again, we buy a lot programmatically. What needs to change isn't just on the, isn't the responsibility solely of the buyers. Something that I started Campfire around was this idea in trying to change which, maybe we're making progress? Maybe we're not, I don't know. But trying to change media, being this last box to check, the most challenging part about direct-to-publisher buying is the best part, which is that you're working with people and you can't click, click, click on a laptop and then have your stuff out. You actually have to communicate with a human being and there's more time that it takes to place a buy that way and, unfortunately, our whole, a lot of the agency and client ecosystem. The way that we prepare marketing strategies and where media lives within that marketing strategy was probably broken from the start. But I mean, we can't go back the 50, 60 years from when all this started becoming a science and then how media buying started to blossom. But you would think, decades later, that we would get to a different place where media was brought further upstream into the conversation to allow time to put together a thoughtful strategy.

Speaker 2:

Do the research produce a good media strategy? Put together a thoughtful plan. Unfortunately, most of the brands and we've worked with a lot of them local, regional, national the same cadence has been set, which is we're gonna go through our brand strategy, we're gonna go through our creative strategy and then we wanna get all this out to the public in two weeks. Go, and in two weeks, whoever is doing it, it doesn't matter if you have an army of buyers or you have a boutique firm like us. It doesn't matter the amount of people. There will never be enough people to be able to put together a thoughtful plan.

Speaker 2:

In that realm, there's over 30,000 publishers and networks, so it's not a matter of size. Oh well, they're a bigger team, they can do more. No, there's never going to be enough people to be able to thoughtfully do something within a week two weeks spread of time, and so people need to understand that there's a strategy that goes into really well executed media planning and buying, and that media planning and buying is an art in itself, because, when done right, there's a lot of communication that goes into building that and to make it reach people with care and with empathy and all the things that brands say they care about. And that's the challenge, though, that the industry is in, and at that conference that I was at, it's like great. Everyone's acknowledging that yeah, we need more direct-to-publisher buying. How the heck are you going to do that? There's more publishers or networks now more than ever. It's so fragmented. How can any human do that?

Speaker 1:

Well, and I feel like that's a perfect segue because that's one of the things where it's one of our current projects that we're working on is trying to crack that nut. So stay tuned, folks, we'll keep you up to date on what we've got cooking. We've got some cool stuff cooking there. I do think it's also important to name that it's good to have media more up front in the strategy because it can actually inform the creative, because if you know where and when you're going to be reaching people, you can contextualize that creative to have it be a more immersive and effective experience.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, more and more we're seeing that we're, as a media strategy agency, we're being, we are seeing that we are being brought in further up, which I think is which is good. Unfortunately, I'm just not seeing that at scale across the whole industry. Yet we're in a great position where our clients do understand that that best work comes from when creative and media are sitting at the table together. Because, yes, media does sometimes lead and we're seeing more brands want some of those audience insights that we're able to pull from the ad tech that we're using to be able to influence how we're thinking about communicating with people, and a lot of that has to do with for the last probably decade, we've been talking about personalization at scale, like how can all this ad technology that we have at our fingertips help us understand a person and be reaching that right person? And like personalizing a message to that person.

Speaker 2:

Well, now, with the advancements in technology and how AI is a part of almost every ad tech platform, now we're able to, when creative and media are sitting at the table together, think way past personalization and think about relevance.

Speaker 2:

How can we make sure that we're not just reaching the right person with the right message, but we're reaching them in the right mindset, because sure, we might be looking at one persona, trying to understand that one persona with all the technology that we've had for the last 10, 15 years in digital media. That's great. That's only gotten better, I guess. Add a little footnote there's still some hallucination things that come with some of that data, but for the most part it's got better. But now we can think about how is that one persona thinking and moving through their day, how are they at 8 am versus during their lunch break, during their drive home, during their evening when they're turning on Hulu or whatever it may be, and really make sure that that messaging is reflective of that mindset of that person. So that's a lot of what we're talking about now with the advancements of how quickly technology is developing is how can we get to relevance at scale?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's powerful, powerful stuff and I think speaks to the responsibility we have as a media agency, right Like the fact that we are reaching people in these. You know, truly, you know intimate moments of their lives, right Like.

Speaker 2:

I think everyone should start out having to work in journalism before they get in advertising, because, I mean, it's true and there's no. I honestly don't know how you can really feel the impact of that unless you are in that technology for something other than pitching or selling a brand. So, for example, like I, have a completely different, deeper connection with everything that we do for all of our brand partners, because when you are reporting on a story oftentimes the worst day of someone's potential life and then you have to communicate that through and know that their family is going to be seeing this, their neighbors are going to be seeing this, it hits very differently than throwing an ad on a mobile screen or getting your ad on TV. So it's like when it's true, it really is. People really should take into account that. Yeah, when you go into someone's home with your ad message that message itself, be aware that someone could be watching TV to escape something really deep, could be something really awesome. But there's so many emotions that people are going through that they turn to their devices and technology to either escape or gather more information around and to really respect that Like in.

Speaker 2:

I don't know how you do that, honestly, through advertising alone. You really have to have a deeper connection to understanding the whole media ecosystem than just living in a bubble of marketing Because, let's be honest, most people don't care about marketing. It's the craft that we're in in. Marketing is we do our job well when they don't realize how that message was impacting them and that's what brought them to make that change in behavior. But most people don't like marketing, so it's like. So just understand how that gravity of when you're reaching people and how you might be reaching someone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, and I think too, I mean marketing gets a bad rap, because I think, because there are, you know, there are historically folks that haven't cared about the impact of that, right, and so they are just trying to, like sell as many widgets as possible and they're in your face about it and they don't care how it's impacting you or your community or how they get it done, and like that's the gross stuff, right, that makes us feel all like super icky and like I can't believe I just bought another crappy thing on Instagram, marketplace or whatever the heck, right, Like you know.

Speaker 1:

And then I think that the difference is recognizing the reverence for that space and realizing that, whatever brand it is that you're representing, there are people out there. That item, that product, whatever it might be that they've been looking for, like connecting those dots for folks, and that's what's really powerful and that's media done well, right, everybody and their brother. It's trying to reach the people who are looking for you in a meaningful way, to start to build that relationship and build that brand loyalty for the long run.

Speaker 2:

And, yes, to that end, the care is felt when you put care into your strategy and planning. I know, and I think a lot of people do know, because the regular, everyday consumer is quite savvy with how retargeting works, like across different platforms. People know and so you know when you're being served this same ad over and over again. It's like okay, as someone in the industry, you know that someone's asleep behind the wheel, they're not paying attention, like there are things to correct, getting hit by the same message to the point of annoyance. So it's like care.

Speaker 2:

It's also every marketer's duty to like put care behind the work, and that's something where I see I'm really optimistic about the way AI is enabling us to do deeper work in our field, and it should free us up to be able to make sure that we're putting around parameters, to make sure that we are respecting people and that we're not using media as a blunt instrument to just continue and try to force someone into doing something like you. Just it it's, it's known people. People understand what we're doing, so that's our obligation to yeah, responsibly. That's where we came, that's where obligation too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, responsibly. That's where we came. That's where responsibly different came from right. Trying to be responsibly different here, it's true. Oh my gosh, amazing, chris. This was great Anything else you want to add Thoughts, feelings.

Speaker 2:

I think the time around when this episode is coming out, it's going to be around the 4th of July, which is like one of my favorite holidays, so I just want to share that like all of this is about.

Speaker 2:

I'm looking at a waving flag of American flag out my window here in Portland as I look over the docks. It's on a boat, but it's like all of this is about just celebrating what independence means and like don't take it for granted. And media has a really large role to play in that, and every marketer thus has a really large role to play in that. And I hope just people remember just how much of a gift the responsibility that we have is. And I know everyone's talking about AI and this is not going to turn into that, but there's a lot that we can be hopeful for, and the exciting part for us in the agency world is that people look for us to be the forefront of innovation and thinking about how all this technology is going to be used. So what an awesome gift to be able to propel forward for the common good and if we keep that kind of mindset, hopefully it sets up our planet, our culture, in a really good way for future generations, for my little dudes out there.

Speaker 1:

So enjoy Independence Day, yeah well and so July 2nd, which is when this is going to air, is our five-year anniversary and when we kicked off this podcast about B Corp certification. Once you certify as a B Corp, the very last step is that you're required to sign the Declaration of Interdependence, recognizing that none of us are an island and we're all interdependent on each other, and I feel like that's so true in our media landscape that, in order for advertisers to get their message out, it means that we have to have a healthy media ecosystem. It means that folks have to have a healthy media ecosystem. It means that folks have to have local, reliable news. There are a ton of studies out there about how news deserts also impact health outcomes for folks, too. I mean. I know I mentioned voting as an example, but health outcomes having access to local information.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to share one more stat here that I feel like is really important. A 2021 Pew Research study found that 75 percent of Americans trust local news, compared to only 58 percent who trust national outlets. That just goes to show like how important these local outlets are, and truly, you know to have a media strategy where you're trying to cut media vendors off at the knees. You're just going for the cheapest dollar really doesn't serve the ecosystem and in the long run, it's not going to serve brands either. So we are interdependent and so this is kind of like our five-year, like redeclaration of interdependence within our media media ecosystem and, uh, yeah, excited to be on this journey with y'all yeah, ditto that that is well said.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, ben, for hosting the chat my pleasure.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for joining me. You've been listening to fireside from campfire consulting. Join us again by the fire as we explore more ways to connect through media. Till next time, be responsibly different.