Oregon sportswear giant pledges to give ‘the company’ to anyone who can prove the Earth is flat
Are you a conspiracy theorist who has always wanted to own your own sportswear company? Today is your lucky day because if you can find the edge of the Earth and photograph it, then Columbia Sportswear can be yours — or at least some of the stuff lying around its Oregon headquarters.
A new ad from the company features Tim Boyle, the company’s CEO, challenging flat-earthers.
“You guys claim there’s an end to the Earth?” Boyle says. “Well, just go snap a picture. Send it to us. And you get the assets of the company. All of it.”
What does Boyle mean? According to information posted with the video, the photo must be of “a visible, physical end to the planet Earth. We’re talking infinite sheer drop, abyssal void, clouds cascading into infinity.”
For more clarification, they include a few things that are not the “edge of the Earth,” such as: “A clifftop in Seattle. A cul-de-sac in Kansas. Or your buddy Dave legally changing his name to ‘The Edge.’”
And as far as what “the company” means, according to the fine print, it “refers to ‘The Company, LLC’ with assets which are valued at $100,000.”
Boyle pointed out some of those assets, like clothing samples, a copy machine, a stuffed deer head and even what appears to be a decommissioned gondola, in a walk around the Columbia’s offices.
That $100,000 is nowhere near the amount that Columbia is actually worth. Wall Street values Columbia, which also includes Prana, Sorel and Mountain Hardwear, at about $3 billion.
While it seems unlikely that Columbia or its lawyers are concerned about someone actually getting a photo of the real edge of the Earth (a thing that doesn’t exist), they may be hedging their bets, just in case someone figures out a loophole and tries to get a Harrier fighter jet for 7 million Pepsi points or something.
Who knows? Maybe some cartographer out there is about to get $100,000 richer because she has mapped a very remote “infinite sheer drop, abyssal void, clouds cascading into infinity” somewhere no one has thought to look before.
Either way, the ad ends with the pitch.
“Hey flat-earthers, do me a favor,” Boyle says. “If you’re going to the edge of the Earth, wear Columbia.”
Columbia has been making ads that feature its first family for years. Gert Boyle, Tim Boyle’s mom and predecessor as Columbia CEO, died in 2019 at age 95, and in the flat-earth ad, it’s impossible not to see echoes of the older Boyle’s deadpan humor.
Last month, the company announced its succession plan, naming Peter Bragdon and Joseph Boyle as new co-presidents. Joseph Boyle is Tim Boyle’s son. It remains to be seen if he, too, will start participating in ad campaigns.
You can watch the whole ad here:
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