Columbia CEO’s $3-bn flat-Earth challenge goes viral: What the ‘edge of the earth’ stunt really means

Columbia CEO’s flat-Earth challenge goes viral

Columbia CEO Tim Boyle has set social media buzzing with a tongue in cheek challenge to flat Earth believers, offering what he describes as control of a $3-billion business if they can find and photograph the fabled “edge of the Earth.”

The stunt, branded “Expedition Impossible,” is Columbia Sportswear’s latest global campaign. In an open letter published in The New York Times and shared across the company’s social channels, Boyle directly addresses flat Earthers, saying he has seen their “manifestos” and “diagrams” and inviting them to “put your map where your mouth is” by proving the planet has a hard edge.

Anyone who can reach that edge and send back a verifiable photograph, he promises, will receive “everything owned by the company,” from mannequins, coffee machines and snowshoes to office plants and even a taxidermy beaver that sits in Columbia’s cafeteria. The prize is framed as control of a business worth around $3 billion, roughly the value of the Columbia empire built by Boyle’s family since 1938.

The fine print, however, tells a more modest story. Legal terms cited in trade and marketing reports make clear that the winner would actually receive “The Company, LLC,” a special purpose entity holding assets worth about 100,000 dollars, not Columbia Sportswear Corporation itself. The “edge” also has a strict definition: not a dramatic cliff or roadside drop, but a visible physical end of the planet, an “infinite sheer drop” into an abyssal void, something no scientist believes exists.

For Columbia, the goal is less about risking ownership and more about sharpening its brand voice. The campaign, created with agency adam&eveDDB, is part of a broader repositioning that leans into irreverent humour and extreme scenarios to showcase how rugged its outdoor gear is, even for an expedition that cannot actually happen.

Reactions have ranged from amused praise for a clever trolling of conspiracy theorists to criticism that the mechanics rely on small print that undercuts the grand promise. Yet by tapping into one of the internet’s most persistent fringe beliefs, Columbia has guaranteed exactly what a modern outdoor brand craves: viral attention, debate and a fresh reminder of its name on timelines around the world.