Robert Irwin Columbia Sportswear Ad, Tellurix Trail Shoe: Shop Online

If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission.

Robert Irwin has wrangled snakes, cuddled koalas, and charmed television audiences from Australia to America. Now, he’s outrunning a stampede of inflatable crocodiles through the outback.

Columbia Sportswear has unveiled its latest campaign starring its global brand ambassador, and the brand is leaning hard into Irwin’s signature blend of wildlife enthusiasm and self-deprecating humor. The new spot, filmed in Australia, casts Irwin in a high-stakes comedic chase through the bush, relying on his wilderness instincts — and a pair of Columbia’s new Tellurix Titanium OutDry Shoes — to escape a tidal wave of oversized inflatable crocs bearing down on him.

The ad is the latest entry in Columbia’s “Engineered for Whatever” brand platform, which the outdoor apparel company has used to put its gear through increasingly absurd real-world scenarios since the campaign’s launch. This time, the brand is leaning into nature documentary pastiche, with Irwin playing an exaggerated version of himself in a send-up of the wildlife programming his family helped define.

Ironically, the most creatively ambitious piece of the campaign wasn’t the ad itself, but the elaborate stunt that preceded it. Ahead of the spot’s global release, Columbia’s marketing team cut together action sequences from the shoot to construct a faux theatrical trailer for a fictional film titled “Max Impact,” starring Irwin as a full-blown Hollywood action hero. The fake campaign included everything from billboard placements, projections, a dedicated website at maximpactmovie.com and even a YouTube channel — sending fans into rabid discourse and speculation before the reveal.

“We’re having a blast bringing ‘Engineered for Whatever’ to life, and Robert’s sense of humor, love for mother nature, and his taste for adventure make him the perfect star for our spring campaign,” Columbia’s head of marketing Matt Sutton said in a statement. “He never holds anything back — wrangling wildlife in the outback, owning the dance floor, or outrunning a herd of rabid inflatable crocodiles.”

Shop Columbia’s new Tellurix Titanium OutDry Shoes featured in the campaign below: