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By Thomas Baekdal - March 2012

Columbia Took Catvertising Seriously

Remember back in November, when John ST put out a video that the future of advertising agencies was to be a catvertising agency?

 

The message was clear. In the future, cat videos would exceed all other forms of content. And we laughed and laughed and laughed, because...well...it was funny as there was some truth to that. But nobody took them them seriously, not even John ST. It was all just a good joke. Haha!

Except for the people working at Columbia Sportswear. Somehow they actually took this whole thing seriously, and the result is an advertising campaign firmly planted in the world of catvertising.

 

We might all think this is just a big joke (and it is), but I would not be surprised if this video is going to turn out to be Columbia Sportswear's most popular video on YouTube. After only two weeks, it already has 73,000 views putting in the top 10 (and making it their second most popular campaign).

Of course, there is a catch. Yes, it's easy to get tons of views by dumping down your message to popular internet memes, but it also reflects on your identity, which reflects on the type of customers you get. The cat video is mostly harmless (and funny), but then they also posted videos of people eating food soaked in sweat (as part of the same campaign). I don't want to connect with that kind of brand.

Personally, I prefer videos like this amazing one from Peak Performance, but alas, it *only* has 15,000 views.

 
 
 
 

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Thomas Baekdal

Founder, media analyst, author, and publisher. Follow on Twitter

"Thomas Baekdal is one of Scandinavia's most sought-after experts in the digitization of media companies. He has made ​​himself known for his analysis of how digitization has changed the way we consume media."
Swedish business magazine, Resumé

 

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