Message First in Practice: Columbia Sportswear

Message is the heart and soul of brand. Industry experts, agency leaders and leading CEOs know that putting message first is the only approach that delivers the best results for their marketing.

HNW might have codified a unique message first marketing approach, but a huge part of that has been watching how other brands and businesses centre their marketing around a core message. 

Brands like this one.

The Brand: Columbia Sportswear

Columbia Sportswear is an American company specialising in outdoor gear – think hiking boots, coats, that kind of thing. But unlike the worthy, scouting-for-boys feel you get from similar British brands, they’ve gone all in on a much more rugged message. 

The Message: Tested Tough

Columbia’s chair from 1970 to 2019, Gert Boyle, was one tough mother.

That’s not a judgement. It’s the persona the company has built for her over the years. When other sport and leisure brands have focused on comfort, or fashion, or style, Boyle and company took a different tack.

They live in the Pacific Northwest. It’s cold, miserable, and grim up there. It rains, and when the rain stops it snows. It isn’t a place for high fashion. It’s a place for fishing, skiing, hiking, and not freezing to death while you do it.

Tough clothes for a tough climate.

The problem with Columbia leaning so hard into their original Tough Mother messaging is that the brand became intrinsically linked with Boyle. That’s not necessarily a problem, but when a brand is an extension of a personality, and the personality starts becoming larger than the brand… Then you’re competing against your own leadership team.

That’s why, in 2015, Columbia spun off a new message. One that brought in the company’s (and Gert Boyle’s) reputation for resilience, along with a more subtle focus on the sort of performance engineering you’d expect from a car or a tech company. 

Not a repositioning. Not a reinvention. Just a tweak to build on everything Boyle had achieved at the helm, and the reputation Columbia’s sportswear had earned over the previous 70 years. 

“Tested Tough”

You’re heading out into the forests of the Pacific Northwest. There’s snow and sleet and rain and wind and people can’t prove there isn’t Bigfoot. You need gear you can trust to handle the elements. Something proven. Engineered. Resilient.

Something tested tough.

Does It Work? Applying Our CRAFTED Methodology

When Hampson Nattan Williams codified the message first process, we needed a framework we could use to judge the efficiency of any given message – whether it’s one we’d created or, as in this case, one a business is using.

We call it CRAFTED.

To be CRAFTED, a message must be:

C – Clear and Concise

R – Resonant 

A – Authentic

F – Flexible

T – Timeless 

E – Evocative 

D – Distinct

“Tested Tough” is CRAFTED.

Clear and Concise

• Simple, jargon-free language
• Just two words
• Focus on resilience as a key benefit

Resonant 

• Alliteration makes it memorable
• Core audience values toughness
• Core audience values trustworthiness (tested)

Authentic

• Built out of a 30+ year “tough mother” message
• Plays on the brand’s reputation for hard-wearing kit
• Language fits in with existing tone

Flexible

• Toughness and testing aren’t limited to a single product line
• Themes of toughness can be expanded upon
• Testing opens up avenues for ad spots and campaigns

Timeless 

• No reliance on fads, trends or technology
• Reflects back on a storied history
• Won’t become obsolete

Evocative 

• Testing brings to mind precision engineering
• Toughness reflects the brand’s location and use

Distinct

• Toughness is Columbia’s territory
• Other brands compete on fashion/specific tech

With just two words, Columbia Sportswear have created a message that’ll work for them for years to come.

The Voice: Purposeful Straight-Talker

Because we’ve never worked with Columbia Sportswear, we haven’t had the benefit of running a tone of voice workshop for them. 

But we don’t think they needed to build a tone from the ground up. Like many businesses led by someone with a distinct personality, the Columbia tone is just channelling Gert Boyle.

Here’s Gert talking to Bloomberg:

“Don’t get hung up on ‘should’ve’—yesterday’s never gonna come around again, so get on with it.”

No floweriness, and no fuss. Gert’s a straight-talker down to the ground. 

But the brand does a little more – bringing in purpose. Everything is focused on the outcome. Buy this, don’t freeze to death and get eaten by vultures.

Take a look at this from the Columbia website:

It wouldn’t surprise us if Gert wrote the first draft. Or dictated it. But there’s a sense of purpose being worked into the copy too. A confidence and sense of forward momentum that carries through everything, even the product descriptions.

But Columbia shows that even a straight-talker doesn’t have to be all business all the time. They use that no-nonsense tone to bring in some humour – whether that’s a mock warning at the start of a TV spot:

Or taking a little sideways swipe at the animal rights activists that always have it in for clothing brands (even when Columbia doesn’t sell fur coats):

There’s a real commitment to getting to the point, showing you the direction of travel, and making sure everyone’s clear on exactly what’s going on. And no fear of having a little fun with it – without sacrificing the tone.

Purposeful straight-talker. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The Deployment: Taking rugged craftsmanship and running with it

Columbia’s most recent campaign took that message of tested tough and ran with it, finding a different way of expressing the concept. Engineered for whatever. The trust factor provided by testing became engineering, and toughness turns into a product that can handle anything.

Not just anything – whatever. An alligator? Whatever. This is a product so tough that it can dismiss the threat of a giant angry lizard, or an earth-shattering apocalypse.

This is a tough brand. But not so tough they can’t have a little fun.

The message of testing also runs through some real eye-catching TV ads. In a visual medium, you can show, not tell. How do you show “tested tough?” You test a product in a way that demonstrates just how tough it is.

Trousers so tough you can hang off a helicopter from them. But unlike Volvo’s similar spot that focuses on the technical quality of their welding, this isn’t interested in the specifics. We’re all in on purpose – again with that undercurrent of often pitch dark humour. Or humor, as an American company would spell it. 

“If they give out, the only thing Morgan is getting out of this is a memorial bench.”

Don’t fall, don’t die, and don’t get eaten by gators.

It’s a tried and tested approach to messaging they’ve used for decades. 

Like don’t freeze to death buried in an ice rink while your boss drives a zamboni over you.

Or when she buries you in a snowdrift.

Show, don’t tell. This stuff is tough, and we’ve tested it. All our gear is engineered for whatever the great outdoors throws at you. But we’re not hectoring, we’re having a bit of a joke with you. A knowing wink.

More “listen to mother,”  and less “the parks service warns that two hundred Americans die each year due to improper cold weather clothing.”

Choose something tough and tested. Not some fashionable parka that’ll leave you with frostbite.

They literally tested the thermal properties of their materials by crashing it into the moon. 

The Athena probe might not have landed – at least not softly and pointing the right way – but the message and the idea certainly did.

And let’s face it. If you’re shooting for the moon with your messaging, you may as well link up with the toughest man in the galaxy…

Columbia x STAR WARS™ The Vader™ Collection | Columbia Sportswear

Concepts and celebrity partnerships – informed by the key message. That’s the power of putting your message first.

THE KEY MESSAGE:  Tested Tough

Primary strapline:     Tested Tough

Company mission: Stop people freezing to death in the Pacific Northwest

Supporting messages: Tested tough in space

One tough mother

Engineered for whatever

Since the 1930s, Columbia Sportswear has ploughed a furrow as the maker of tough gear that stops you being dead. Not fashionable ski jackets that’ll leave you as a smart looking icicle – high performance gear that keeps you safe up mountains, in rivers, or buried up to your neck in snow. 

With confidence built on toughness and testing, Columbia decided on a resilient idea and put it through its paces. They literally tested their marketing idea tough and came to one conclusion. 

The best way to handle whatever the world throws at you is to put your message first. 

Putting your message first is so clear. So effective.

So what are you waiting for?

Let’s put your message first.