Our Company, Ourselves
An interview with Gert and Tim Boyle of Columbia Sportswear Co. The Boyles explain how starring in their own advertisements helped spark their company's fast growth.
Published April 1998
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How the Boyles fueled Columbia Sportswear's growth by starring in their own ads
You may have seen Tim Boyle hanging off a cliff, harnessed only by a Columbia Sportswear jacket. Or perhaps you've seen his 74-year-old mother, Gert Boyle, flexing a bicep tattooed "Born to Nag." Thanks to television and print ads that star the CEO and the chairwoman, respectively, of Columbia Sportswear Co., the business has become a household name. But just 14 years ago, the outdoor-clothing manufacturer was a little-known $13-million business.
Columbia's roots go back even farther--to 1938, when Gert Boyle's father, Paul Lamfrom, bought what was originally just a hat company in Oregon. After Gert's husband, who had been running the company, died, she and son Tim grew the business in quiet anonymity until 1984. Then the company's advertising agency, Borders, Perrin & Norrander, in Portland, Oreg., persuaded the pair to star in their own ads. That move, coupled with new-product introductions, set Columbia Sportswear on the fast-growth track. By positioning Gert Boyle as "one tough mother," a taskmaster who forces Tim to jump through outrageous hoops to test the clothing's quality, Columbia Sportswear has gained international prominence. The company reports that after the campaign's launch, sales grew from $13 million in 1984 to $358 million in 1997. Inc. staff writer Stephanie Gruner interviewed the Boyles at their Portland headquarters to learn the secrets of a successful ad campaign.
Inc.: How did your "Tough Mother" campaign come about?
Gert Boyle: Back in 1983, our advertising was about how our products weren't just manufactured, they were engineered. The trouble was, everybody else in our industry was advertising the same way. So our advertising agency asked us, "What's different about Columbia Sportswear?" We said, "Well, there's this little old lady running the business." (I wasn't so old then, but I've always been little.) We decided to see if it worked to use me in the ads, because that certainly would be different. People were skeptical; they said that hunters and sportsmen didn't want to listen to some little old lady telling them how to dress. But we did it anyway. Our first ad said, "Before it passes Mother Nature, it has to pass Mother Boyle." And it worked. So we just kept going--and the ads became a little bit more outrageous as we went along.
Inc.: Why do you think your ads have been so successful?
Gert Boyle: Everybody else's ads in the outdoor-clothing business are the same. There's always a young, firm body. Sometimes, with a little luck, there are two firm bodies intertwined with each other. And you could never do on skis what they say you can do on skis. But if you put your finger over the name of the people who are advertising, you couldn't tell whose ad it is. Well, ours are different.
