Columbia’s CEO says he’ll give away the entire company to anyone who proves the Earth is flat in a deadpan stunt that brings back Columbia’s best era of irreverence.
Columbia Sportswear just launched “Expedition Impossible,” a gloriously absurd challenge aimed at Flat Earthers: prove the Earth has an “edge” and CEO Tim Boyle will hand over everything the company owns.
The campaign, an open letter in The New York Times plus a wonderfully straight-faced film, doesn’t punch down. Instead, it pokes fun at the conspiracy and at Columbia itself, leaning into a tone the brand hasn’t embraced this confidently since the 80s and 90s.
In the film, Boyle calmly walks through HQ listing off what the future winner would inherit: technical gear, office plants, a taxidermy beaver… all delivered with the emotional range of a man reading a warranty manual. The dryness is the joke, and it works.
This is Columbia reactivating its “Engineered for Whatever” territory through humor: performance gear built for every extreme, including the imaginary ones. And the stunt doesn’t stop at paid media, Columbia is taking the bit straight into Reddit threads and YouTube comments, where Flat Earth debates actually live.
Behind the absurdity sits a message of confidence. A brand doesn’t make a promise this wild unless it knows no one’s coming back with proof. Columbia’s gear has survived blizzards, volcanoes, and space missions, the edge of the Earth is the least of its worries.
Expedition Impossible is sharp, weird, self-aware, and culturally timed. In other words: a reminder that outdoor brands can still be funny, and that humor, when done well, travels further than any expedition.
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