"Engineered for Whatever"

5 August 2025

60s

The great ouch-doors.

Nature wants to fuck you up and that's A-OK. It's the premise of this brilliant, no-holds-barred spot for Columbia Sportswear, the brand that wants to set the record straight about the great outdoors: it'll make your life hell. Take the woman who goes for a walk among the flowers and gets bitten by a snake for her trouble, or the guy who's beaten up by a mud monster and a punk snowman (yes, that can also happen).

It only gets better—for the viewer, not the cast—from here. A mountain runner is chased by the Grim Reaper in shorts, teeth are shattered by the cold, and Aron '127 Hours' Ralston gets his other arm trapped between a rock and a hard place. It's such a rub-your-eyes-in-disbelief moment as Ralston relives the worst moment of his life for laughs and nails it.

Before anyone swears off fresh air for life, however, the brand shows it is possible to fight back. As much as we like how the video game beatdown victim goes medieval on his opponents, the best way to match nature blow for blow is with gear from the advertised brand. In a roundabout way, to save the planet, customers must survive it first.

UK

Sportswear