Columbia European Influencer Campaign: The magic of the UTMB

Columbia Sportswear partners with TCO to take urban influencers to the most iconic trail running event in the world, UTMB. 

This August TCO partnered with Columbia Europe to document the world-famous UTMB trail running race through the eyes of cultural influencers AJ Odudu, Monica Carvalho and Lucile Woodward. Aiming to broaden the reach of the competition outside it’s core trail running community, the campaign shines a light on the incredibly eye-opening experience, from sunrise hikes to midnight runs, we saw awe-inspiring athletes conquer one of the hardest races in the world.

TCO were tasked with identifying culturally relevant talent from the UK, France and Germany, all of whom had an active interest in the outdoors but had never experienced a race like this before. Each talent documented their personal experience of the event, host and presenter AJ Odudu observed the grit of the athletes, photographer Monica Carvahlo created breathtaking photomontages exploring the juxtaposition between the landscapes and the participants and Lucile Woodward followed the every day women to inspire her audience, that with determination anyone could take part. All of the talent were so affected by the event they produced and shared additional content on their social channels all driving followers back to the Columbia Europe account.

This purely organic campaign, worked with cultural influencers who have diverse and engaged audiences from a range of different passion points. We reached 850,000 with over 30,000 engagements across Europe, and some followers even committed to running the 170k UTMB race in 2020! Huge well done to our incredible talent, crew and all the athletes who took part in race this year.