Outdoor-gear retailing giant REI this week rolled out its first-ever TV commercials as part of its seasonal "Find Out" campaign.
I think the retailer just walked off a cliff. Let me explain.
Unless I crash into it with a helium balloon, I'm never going to make it to the top of Mt. Everest. I'm never going to dangle by pitons on the Great Trango Wall in Pakistan. I develop hypothermia just reaching into the back of the refrigerator.
Yet I have enough pro expedition gear in the garage to mount an assault on K2. Snowshoes, ice axes, climbing helmets, plastic mountaineering boots and wicking-action underwear sufficient to dry up the Red Sea.
Why? Because I'm thoroughly manipulated by advertising imagery in this category. The marketing of the major players -- dominated by brands such as the North Face, Columbia, Marmot, Patagonia -- trades in monumental, heroic, beautiful, harrowing scenes: a sunrise over the Eiger, ice-rimed beards and parkas on the summit of Annapurna. The brand poetry in these ads is fascinating and strangely irresistible, implying a cause-effect link between the purchase of a product and fulfillment of an outsize personal destiny. You might not be a thin-air acrobat like Conrad Anker, going vertical in Garhwal Himalaya, but one day, maybe, you could come close. Better get the $40 titanium coffee mug just in case.
In the spots (by BBDO Atlanta), the gorgeous, thin-air extremism of the Himalayas has been replaced by the sodden ambience of the rain forest of British Columbia, where the commercials were filmed. While the visual conventions of the category would call for shots of brilliantly sunlit sawtooth massifs seen from 50 miles away, we see . . . well, not much of anything: In one spot, a steady, cold drizzle falls on a forest; in the other, a rainstorm sweeps into a valley, promising campers a sleepless night dog paddling in their tent. This is the sort of meteorology that makes innkeepers rich.
One of the 30-second spots, "Tree," portrays trekkers who have sought shelter under a large rock overhang in a forest. There are college-age kids, a young couple and one bearded old cuss (I'm guessing that's me). Naturally, everyone is decked in primo Gore-Tex jackets, day packs and woolly caps. The group laughs and chats amiably. The rain lets up and the group disperses, in several directions. It's at this moment the viewer realizes this was a chance encounter of strangers.
