Columbia Sportswear has launched an unconventional Super Bowl campaign featuring beer brewed with ingredients foraged from bear faeces, positioning the stunt as proof that its products can withstand any outdoor challenge.
The Oregon-based brand partnered with Portland brewery Breakside to create Nature Calls, using hops and botanicals recovered from grizzly bear droppings. The campaign, created by agency Adam&Eve/DBA, supports Columbia’s “Engineered for Whatever” positioning by demonstrating extreme material durability.
The campaign, created by agency Adam&Eve/DBA, supports Columbia’s “Engineered for Whatever” positioning by demonstrating extreme material durability.
A stunt, but a real beer
The beer’s ingredients were sourced from bear scat collected in wilderness areas, then sanitised and used to brew a limited-edition beer. Columbia promoted the launch through digital channels and secured coverage across marketing trade publications, generating attention ahead of Super Bowl advertising windows when media costs spike.
Breakside Brewery handled production, while Columbia provided outdoor gear used during the foraging process. The collaboration showcases functional apparel performance under challenging conditions – where the challenge, this time, may be resisting repulsion.
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Why Columbia chose earned media over ad buys
Super Bowl advertising traditionally costs brands millions for 30-second spots. Columbia’s approach goes off the path and bids on other ways to capture attention: this time, with a bearish beer. As Matt Sutton, SVP and head of marketing at Columbia, put it: “Why spend $8m on a 30-second ad spot at the big game when you can just find bear poo in Montana, a water treatment facility, a local brewery, and do tailgate taste tests at Levi’s Stadium?”
