Advertising

Beautiful People Doing Stupid Things

As part of the largest and most integrated global marketing campaign in Columbia's history, the Omni-Heat design emphasized cinematic seamlessness as users navigated through product shots and videos of incredibly attractive people engaging in humorous, exaggerated activities.

Clients/Partners: Columbia Sportswear, Transistor Studios
Roles: Rich Internet Application Developer
Industry: Advertising
Deliverables: Bilingual Content Strategy , Development , Wireframing

Overview

01 / Problem: Columbia Sportswear launched Omni-Heat, a reflective thermal lining, with a campaign by Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners and visual design by Transistor Studios. The microsite had to open in the US and six international markets at once.
02 / Design Challenge: Russ designed the interaction and experience, joining Transistor's visuals to Columbia's content, and did the Flash development.
03 / Approach: The site opens by detecting location: US visitors go straight in, and everyone else meets a language gate headed "The language of cold is universal." The preloader carries the product's pitch instead of a spinner.
04 / Outcome: Wireframes, flow and specs delivered 1 June 2010, and the build was tested in IE7. It was tagged for DoubleClick, but no results survive; Columbia's sales growth that season is brand-level, as the case study says.

Process + Evidence Plates

- Fig 01 / Content Strategy
The localisation model stated as a headline — "THE LANGUAGE OF COLD IS UNIVERSAL" over a country/language table: CANADA · ENGLAND · FRANCE · GERMANY · SPAIN · ITALY → ENGLISH · FRANÇAIS · GERMAN · SPANISH · ITALIAN. A six-market, five-language rollout designed into the interface, with the copy line making a virtue of it.
The localisation model stated as a headline — "THE LANGUAGE OF COLD IS UNIVERSAL" over a country/language table: CANADA · ENGLAND · FRANCE · GERMANY · SPAIN · ITALY → ENGLISH · FRANÇAIS · GERMAN · SPANISH · ITALIAN. A six-market, five-language rollout designed into the interface, with the copy line making a virtue of it.
Decision: Write the country and language gate in the campaign's voice
Result: The most functional screen in the site still sounded like the campaign
- Fig 02 / User Flow Analysis
Location cards — YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA and COLORADO. The stunt geography beyond the Scandinavian set.
Location cards — YUKON TERRITORY, CANADA and COLORADO. The stunt geography beyond the Scandinavian set.
Decision: Detect location first and send US visitors straight in
Result: One launch served the US and six international markets without extra steps for most visitors
- Fig 03 / Interaction Design
The campaign's central proposition, on screen: "Columbia — THE GREATER OUTDOORS · THERMAL COMFORT · OMNI-HEAT · SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN STUPID COLD MEETS WARM AND SMART · SHARE · CHANGE REGION · COLD STU[NTS]". The video wall that organises the whole piece, with CHANGE REGION as a first-class control.
The campaign's central proposition, on screen: "Columbia — THE GREATER OUTDOORS · THERMAL COMFORT · OMNI-HEAT · SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN STUPID COLD MEETS WARM AND SMART · SHARE · CHANGE REGION · COLD STU[NTS]". The video wall that organises the whole piece, with CHANGE REGION as a first-class control.
Decision: Carry navigation and the product pitch in the preloader
Result: Load time became part of the story instead of dead time
- Fig 04 / Data Analysis & Visualization
The stunt data as an instrument readout — "SWEDEN · RUSSIA · KOREA · ›LOCATION: 66.319861, 18.830566 · ›STUNT: SNOW MOBILE · ›OUTSIDE TEMP: −12.5°F · ›ALTITUDE 3100 FT". Actual latitude and longitude, temperature and altitude presented as telemetry. Those coordinates fall inside the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland, so the data is real, not dressing.
The stunt data as an instrument readout — "SWEDEN · RUSSIA · KOREA · ›LOCATION: 66.319861, 18.830566 · ›STUNT: SNOW MOBILE · ›OUTSIDE TEMP: −12.5°F · ›ALTITUDE 3100 FT". Actual latitude and longitude, temperature and altitude presented as telemetry. Those coordinates fall inside the Arctic Circle in Swedish Lapland, so the data is real, not dressing.
Decision: Present each cold-weather stunt as an instrument readout
Result: The product's claim read as evidence, with location, temperature and altitude attached
- Fig 05 / Development
Browser-compatibility testing capture 1 of three — and the chrome is the evidence. A Windows XP virtual machine (Suspend · Take Snapshot · Rollback · Settings) running Internet Explorer 7, from the folder columbiaIE7, pointed at http://transistornyc.com/columbiaomniheat/. Two things follow: the staging URL confirms Transistor Studios NYC as the production house (the same studio as the [Yahoo B2B](yahoo.md) work), and someone was systematically testing a rich Flash campaign against the hardest browser of its era, on a snapshot-able VM.
Browser-compatibility testing capture 1 of three — and the chrome is the evidence. A Windows XP virtual machine (Suspend · Take Snapshot · Rollback · Settings) running Internet Explorer 7, from the folder columbiaIE7, pointed at http://transistornyc.com/columbiaomniheat/. Two things follow: the staging URL confirms Transistor Studios NYC as the production house (the same studio as the [Yahoo B2B](yahoo.md) work), and someone was systematically testing a rich Flash campaign against the hardest browser of its era, on a snapshot-able VM.
Decision: Test the build across browsers down to IE7
Result: The campaign worked on the browsers its audience actually used
- Fig 06 / Interaction Design
Picture-23.png
Picture-23.png
Decision: Match absurd content with equally over-the-top interactions
Result: Rotating globes, creeping ice ages and giant freezers kept the story and the joke moving
- Fig 07 / Digital Strategy
Columbia5.png
Columbia5.png
Decision: Design the site as one channel in a multichannel campaign
Result: The web experience introduced Omni-Heat in step with print, social and live events