Dive Brief:
- Columbia Sportswear is embracing grit and humor with a new multiseason ad campaign that arrives nearly a year after the outdoor apparel maker revamped its marketing leadership and agency roster, per news shared with sister publication Marketing Dive.
- “Engineered for Whatever,” part of Columbia’s first brand platform relaunch in a decade, leverages dark humor to demonstrate the durability of its gear. The titular 30-second spot begins with a hiker stopping to smell the flowers before getting jumped by a snake, setting the tone for a narrative that shows people in peril.
- Columbia also enlisted real stunt performers to put its goods to the test in hairy situations, such as dangling above predator-infested waters. Beyond the video ads, the company is refreshing its visual identity with a new typeface, logo lockup, color palette and touch-ups for other assets appearing across retail, social and digital channels.
Dive Insight:
Columbia is taking notes from “Jackass” and “127 Hours” with a campaign that mixes laughs with a tough-as-nails attitude. The revamped messaging and visual identity follow the brand appointing new marketing leadership in October, with Matthew Sutton joining the outdoor company as head of marketing. Around the same time, Columbia named Adam&eveDDB as its global agency of record following a competitive review.
“Engineered for Whatever” aims to position 87-year-old Columbia as a disruptor in a category that tends to portray the great outdoors as “pristine and perfect,” executives said. The brand had seen a sales recovery in recent quarters after a period of flagging consumer demand but is now grappling with the impact of tariffs. One of its goals has been to bring product strategy and marketing closer together to raise awareness for proprietary technology innovations like its Omni-Heat, Omni-Max, Omni-Shade and Omni-Freeze offerings.
The new campaign puts that mandate into action with ads depicting heightened versions of the intense testing Columbia goods undergo. Those trials include: being chased by desert vultures and the literal Grim Reaper; enduring temperatures so cold they crack teeth; and face-planting in the mud on a trail run. A thrash metal cover of the usually dreamy “Blue Skies” serves as the soundtrack.
“Some people think nature is like this,” an opening narration says over footage of a hiker stopping to appreciate the flowers on an idyllic trail. “It’s actually like this,” the narrator continues as a snake suddenly shoots out from the brush to bite the hiker.
The commercial features an appearance by mountaineer Aron Ralston, who again finds himself trapped between a canyon and a falling boulder, a situation that led him to cut off part of his right arm in 2003. The harrowing predicament inspired his autobiography, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” which was later adapted into the feature film “127 Hours.” Henry-Alex Rubin directed “Engineered for Whatever,” with production by Smuggler.
"By embracing the real and unexpected sides of adventure, we’re staying true to our legacy and charting a distinct and memorable path for our brand going forward,” said Columbia marketing head Sutton in a statement.
A separate video, releasing later in August, shows off the durability of Columbia’s ROC pants by having a stunt performer dangle over waters teeming with alligators, his lifeline to a helicopter made up of multiple pairs of the pants tied together. Future stunt-oriented creative will show people strapped to a snowplow to promote Columbia’s Omni-Heat Infinity technology and tumbling down a mountain slope in a snowball while keeping warm with the brand’s puffer jackets.
In addition, Columbia is running out-of-home ads that carry the same throughline of punchy humor. Social, display, audio and connected TV elements round out the media plan.
The marketing effort is one part of a broader strategy to attract younger and more active consumers, which includes several shifts to the activewear company’s brand, product and marketplace approach.
Columbia Sportswear's sales increased 6% in the second quarter, the company announced last week. However, sales were down 2% in the U.S., which was offset by growth in international markets. The company expects tariffs to put pressure on sales going forward.
