AI in Paid Media: Why Strategy Comes First and AI Amplifies It
AI is everywhere in marketing right now. It’s positioned as the answer to rising costs, shrinking attention spans, and increasingly complex media ecosystems. Vendors promise smarter targeting. Platforms promise faster optimization. And brands are told that adopting AI is no longer optional.
At Campfire, we agree with part of that.
We are not anti-AI. We believe AI belongs in modern media strategies AND we are very clear about how it should be used.
AI is not the strategy. It’s an amplifier of strategy.
When AI is asked to replace human judgment, it creates risk. When it’s used to accelerate clarity, alignment, and intent, it creates real advantage.
That belief shaped our work with Allagash Brewing and Scope3, and it’s becoming a cornerstone of how we think about responsible media going forward.
The Problem Isn’t AI — It’s How AI Is Being Deployed
Most AI tools in paid media are designed to optimize toward scale and efficiency. They learn quickly, adjust bids automatically, and prioritize what’s easiest to measure.
What they don’t inherently understand is why a brand exists.
Without human strategy in the driver’s seat, AI tends to:
Optimize toward volume over meaning
Treat all impressions as equal
Ignore context, culture, and community
Externalize waste, financial, environmental, and social
For brands trying to build long-term familiarity and trust, especially those growing from challenger status toward category leadership, this approach doesn’t just fall short. It actively undermines brand equity.
The issue isn’t automation. It’s automation without intention.
A Clear Line in the Sand: Humans Own Strategy, AI Scales It
Campfire’s POV on AI is simple:
Humans define the strategy
Humans articulate brand values and boundaries
AI is used to enforce and scale those decisions consistently
AI should not decide what a brand stands for. It should help ensure that a brand shows up as itself every time, even at scale.
That distinction matters and it’s where many AI implementations go wrong.
Why This Question Mattered for Allagash Brewing
Allagash Brewing operates in one of the most competitive categories in advertising. Big beer budgets dominate share of voice, and craft brands have to be more intentional with every dollar.
Allagash also has deeply held values around sustainability, outdoor culture, and responsible enjoyment. Their media needed to reflect that, not just avoid unsafe content, but actively appear in environments that felt right.
Traditional brand safety tools weren’t built for this. They are broad, blunt, and focused on exclusion rather than alignment. They often cost more, restrict scale, and still allow misaligned placements to slip through.
So instead of asking how to automate more aggressively, we asked a different question:
What if AI could be trained to understand a brand the way a thoughtful human partner does?
Using AI as an Amplifier, Not a Decision-Maker
Working with Scope3, Campfire helped build a custom brand agent for Allagash using natural-language brand standards rather than rigid keyword blocklists.
This was a deliberate choice.
Rather than coding technical rules, we translated Allagash’s brand values, tone, and suitability preferences into plain language. The AI agent then evaluated Facebook and Instagram Feed and Reels placements in real time, classifying each impression as aligned or unaligned with the brand’s standards.
Aligned environments included outdoor adventure, social gatherings, craft beer culture, food, and Maine’s natural beauty. Unaligned environments included divisive politics, irresponsible drinking, and culturally inappropriate contexts.
AI wasn’t deciding what mattered. Humans had already done that work.
AI was simply enforcing those decisions at scale.
That’s the difference.
The Results: Strategy First, Technology Second
The five-week pilot delivered more than six million impressions and produced results that challenge a persistent myth in media: that brand alignment limits performance.
Instead, the campaign improved on both quality and outcomes:
83% of impressions were flagged as unaligned and avoided, freeing budget to reinvest in higher-quality placements
Average ad exposure time increased from 1.69 seconds to 2.03 seconds
Viewability improved by 13%, indicating stronger attention and engagement
These gains weren’t the result of AI “outsmarting” the market. They were the result of clear strategy being consistently applied.
AI didn’t invent a better message. It ensured the message showed up in places where it could actually be received.
Responsible AI Also Means Responsible Media
There’s another dimension to this work that matters deeply to us: sustainability.
Media waste isn’t just inefficient. It carries a real environmental cost.
Scope3 measured the carbon footprint of Allagash’s Meta campaigns at 5.36 metric tons of CO₂e, equivalent to producing over 55,000 pints of beer. The analysis also revealed that shorter video assets reduced emissions by 22% per impression, without hurting performance.
This reinforces a belief we hold strongly:
When media is better aligned, it’s often more efficient and more sustainable by default.
AI can help surface those efficiencies, but only when it’s guided by intentional choices rather than unchecked optimization.
What Campfire Believes About the Future of AI in Media
We don’t believe the future belongs to brands that automate the fastest.
We believe it belongs to brands that:
Use AI to reinforce clarity, not replace thinking
Treat strategy as a human responsibility
View media quality as a growth lever, not a constraint
Measure success beyond clicks and CPMs
AI is a powerful tool. But tools take on the values of the people who wield them.
At Campfire, we’re committed to using AI responsibly, to amplify strategy, reduce waste, and help brands grow without losing what makes them worth choosing in the first place.
FAQ
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Campfire believes AI should amplify human strategy, not replace it. Humans are responsible for defining brand values, goals, and boundaries. AI’s role is to scale those decisions consistently, reduce waste, and improve media quality.
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No. Campfire is pro-AI when it is used responsibly. We believe AI is essential in modern media, but only when it supports intentional strategy rather than automating decisions without context.
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No. Strategy requires judgment, cultural understanding, and accountability, all of which are human responsibilities. AI should support strategists by executing decisions at scale, not by making them independently.
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Responsible AI in media starts with clear human-defined inputs: brand values, suitability standards, and performance goals. AI is then used to enforce those standards consistently, evaluate placements in real time, and eliminate waste without sacrificing scale.
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A brand agent is an AI system trained on a brand’s specific values and suitability preferences using natural language. Instead of relying on generic blocklists, brand agents classify media placements as aligned or unaligned based on brand context and tone.
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By using a custom brand agent, 83% of unaligned impressions were avoided and budget was reinvested into higher-quality placements. This led to increased ad exposure time and higher viewability, proving that better alignment can improve performance.
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Yes. When AI is used to eliminate wasted impressions and optimize creative formats, it can significantly reduce emissions.
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Challenger brands don’t win by shouting louder. They win by building familiarity in trusted environments. AI can help challenger brands scale presence in the right places, reinforcing consistency and trust without diluting the brand.
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Campfire centers AI around brand alignment, media quality, and stewardship of both brands and our media ecosystem. We don’t use AI to chase efficiency alone. We believe AI is not strategy, but when leveraged effectively is an amplifier of strategy.
