You can almost picture the meeting.
The strategy team walk in with a deck full of “category conventions” — and everyone in the room knows what’s coming. Or they think they do.
Slide after slide of spotless tent setups.
Hikers grinning like they’ve just had their teeth whitened.
Someone standing victorious at the top of a mountain — not a bead of sweat, not a mud-splattered boot in sight.
Perhaps they even started that ‘walk like this to get the perfect candid shot’ trend.
Then one of them says it.
“What a croc of sh*t.”
Because here’s the truth:
The outdoors isn’t perfect. It’s messy. Wet. Chaotic. Full of wrong turns, ripped coats, cold hands, mistimed snacks, mild peril, and mid-walk existential crises. We’ve all been there.
And that’s exactly what Columbia’s new campaign — Engineered for Whatever — taps into.
A Welcomed Shift in the Outdoor Narrative
Created by adam&eveDDB, the campaign does what the best strategy always does:
It ditches the fantasy and sells the reality.
Not by stripping away aspiration, but by reframing it.
Because in this world, the dream isn’t the mountaintop moment — it’s knowing that no matter what chaos awaits you, your kit is up to it.
That’s the real dream.
Not “look at me conquering nature.”
But “look at me surviving it — soaked, swearing, perhaps a little battered and bruised but smiling.”
Selling Chaos and Confidence
What makes the campaign work isn’t just the humour or the visual flair — it’s that it gets it.
It knows that the real outdoors is full of:
- Badly erected tents
- Misread maps
- Stoves that never light
- Socks that stay wet
- Rain that starts the minute you unzip your tent
- And yes, that rogue cow that you’re sure is following you
It leans into those moments with joy, energy, and a healthy dose of “we’ve been there too.”
And Behind the Scenes?
It’s easy to imagine this brief being a lot of fun.
A planner asking the team, “Tell us your worst camping story.”
Someone admitting they once used their undies as a sling.
Someone else confessing they threw a paddy halfway through the 3 peaks and demanded a Taxi in the middle of nowhere (#Guilty).
What I love about this campaign is that it is the kind of creative that comes from empathy. From insight. From seeing a truth that the category has ignored — not because it’s ugly, but because it’s real.
These are exactly the briefing sessions that filled me with joy and inspiration. And I hope the team also did it in the wild too. Which reminds me of the time i took a Creative Lead up a mountain, without gear… to prove a point when we worked on Berghaus. (Sorry Ben)
A Grown-Up Dirt is Good
There’s a bit of grown-up Persil in the bones of this campaign.
Not just in the chaos, but in the confidence.
It tells audiences: we’re not here to protect you from the mess — we’re here to make sure you’re ready for it.
That’s the dream Columbia is selling.
Not a picture-perfect hike. But a jacket that’ll survive the storm.
Not the polished Instagram moment. But the real memory — with all the swearing and laughter, dirt and chaos that came with it.
The So What?
Perfection is no longer the dream for the outdoors world. Authenticity is.
Columbia isn’t ditching aspiration.
They’re just rooting it in something people actually recognise and relate to.
How they got there, I hope was by truly embracing the art of putting yourself in the customers shoes. Taking the team outdoors, getting rained on, muddy, injured most likely. And experiencing it all first hand.
So if you’re a brand trying to connect with real people living real lives, don’t shy away from the chaos.
Embrace it. Experience it. And share it in a way that feels real.
The So What... 
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