I was scrolling social media the other day when I came across a Columbia Sportswear campaign that made me stop for a second. One of the social media influencers involved in the campaign was trying to find a fax machine, and my first thought was, "why a fax machine?" The campaign was celebrating the 35th anniversary of its Helvetia fleece, which debuted in 1991. In honor of this milestone, they gave away 91 fleeces, but there was a catch: the only way to enter to win was to send submissions by fax, and people actually did it! Columbia reportedly received more than 4,000 faxes in the first 36 hours, which is what really got me thinking. They only were giving away 91 fleeces, yet thousands of people easily entered by using a piece of technology most of us probably consider outdated.
Why a fax machine, though? They could have used a QR code, an Instagram giveaway or an online form, but a fax made sense because it was part of the experience. The fleece represented 1991, so Columbia found a way to make people go back to that decade in a nostalgic way. They took something most of us probably wouldn't think twice about anymore and made it interesting again. It also made me think about how differently we treat technology compared to things like fashion. Fashion trends come back all the time. Something can disappear for 20 years and suddenly become popular again. Skinny Jeans were "in" in the 80's, came back in style in the mid-2000's, and are just now going back out of style. With technology, though, once something newer comes along, we tend to assume the old version is finished, but sometimes it isn't. For example, fax machines became eFax, paper documents became digital files, desk phones became business phones and video calls. The technology changed, but the need behind it didn't; people still need to send information, share documents and communicate. We just don't necessarily need to do it the same way we did 30 years ago.
That's something I've noticed a lot more since I began working at Systel. Technology doesn't always have a clear ending: sometimes it gets replaced, sometimes it evolves, and sometimes it becomes part of something completely different. A fax machine might feel like a relic of the 1990s, but businesses can still send and receive faxes digitally today without needing a traditional fax machine sitting next to the copier. Maybe that's what I found most interesting about Columbia's campaign. It wasn't really about proving that fax machines are still around. It was about taking something we thought had moved on and reminding us that technology doesn't always disappear just because something newer comes along, sometimes it just needs to evolve.
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