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Male Millennial Opps: Columbia Sportswear announces fall campaign to promote new product line

Columbia Sportswear (CS) announced in its recent Q1 earnings report that it will focus on promoting the new Omni-Heat Infinity. The new line is set to launch this fall and will be supported by a global marketing campaign. The details regarding the campaign are still TBD, but the company did disclose it will feature digital, social media, TV and print ads. Additionally, CS is building its direct-to-consumer business. Its online D-to-C sales increased 35% in Q1 and comprised 20% of net sales. CS also plans on putting a bigger emphasis on digital marketing going forwards. 

Per iSpot, CS spent around $167.4k on national TV ads YTD during programming such as "FOX NFL Sunday" and "College Basketball." It did not allocate any budget towards this channel during the same time period of 2020. However, it spent about $2m during Q4 in 2020 and 2019.

Magellan reports CS placed about five podcast ads over the last year. 

According to Pathmatics, CS earned 191.9m impressions through Instagram ads (66%), desktop video ads (23%), desktop display ads (6%), Facebook ads (4%) and mobile display ads (1%). It placed the majority (97%) of these ads site direct onto sites such as instagram.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, mensjournal.com and amazon.com. It placed the remainder (3%) indirectly through Amazon and Google AdX+AdSense onto sites such as yahoo.com, amazon.com, finance.yahoo.com, sports.yahoo.com and espn.com. It spent around $1.5m on digital display ads YTD, a massive jump from $131k spent in this channel during the same time period of 2020. Full-year spend jumped 32% from $2.5m in 2019 to $3.3m in 2020. 

Sellers-- CS seems to target mainly millennials with a male skew. Traditionally, the company targeted Gen-X men, but the recent digital spend increases lead me to believe it is trying to reach a younger audience. It also invests in OOH, print, radio and local broadcast TV ads, per Kantar. Start reaching out offering ad space for the upcoming campaign. Keep in mind, while CS plans on making digital ads a priority in the future. 

Agency & martech readers-- I believe CS uses Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners. There are no signs of an impending review; you will probably have better luck looking for work elsewhere.