Columbia SH/FT

TAKING A BOLD STEP FORWARD

The outdoor footwear category is crowded and constantly in motion. Today, consumers expect their shoes to do it all, delivering style, performance and the versatility to take them from office to trail and beyond.

Columbia’s new line of smart, go-anywhere footwear checked all these boxes and more. We just needed to get people to rethink a brand with 80 years of outdoor history and show how perfectly it fit their changing expectations and destinations.

EVOKING THE SOUL OF THE BRAND

We started with strategy, taking a comprehensive look at the category—its conventions, consumer behavior and opportunities. Tapping into these insights, we crafted a manifesto designed to capture the pavement-meets-path essence of this new footwear and inspire the creative work to follow. We knew we needed a rich jumping-off point on which to build our story and we found it in the promise of moving outside the expected to unlock the restless heart of what’s next.

With this as our North Star, we started bringing the brand to life. The first step was to create a name that could speak to the shoes’ breakthrough technology as well as this new direction for Columbia. SH/FT was the answer—an option that nods to both forward motion and the way the footwear allows people to effortlessly pivot from one activity to the next.

PUTTING SH/FT IN MOTION

We had our story. We had our name. Now it was time for the rubber to hit the road, diving into visual identity and campaign concepting. We wanted our logo to illustrate the unexpected, dynamic nature of the footwear and provide the foundation for the larger visual identity.

With the logo locked, we were ready to create a campaign that could activate this next-step footwear across everything from print ads and social posts to videos that took us from bustling city streets to pine-needle paths. Work that illustrated just how versatile this footwear is and added a compelling new chapter to the Columbia story.