Most brands advertise around big events. Red Bull built one. On October 14, 2012, the energy drink company’s logo was on a capsule 24 miles above the Earth, on a spacesuit falling faster than sound, and on the screens of millions of people watching live.
The project
Red Bull has long marketed itself less through ads than through extreme sports and stunts that fit its slogan, “Red Bull gives you wings.” Stratos was the most ambitious of them. In January 2010, New Scientist reported that Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner was working with a team of scientists and sponsor Red Bull to attempt the highest skydive on record.
The goal was to jump from a capsule lifted into the stratosphere by a helium balloon, and to become the first parachutist to break the sound barrier. The record Baumgartner was chasing had stood since 1960, when U.S. Air Force Colonel Joe Kittinger jumped from about 19.5 miles up. Kittinger joined the Stratos team as Baumgartner’s mentor and his voice at mission control.
The jump
On October 14, 2012, Baumgartner took off from Roswell, New Mexico, in a pressurized capsule carried by a huge, ultra-thin helium balloon. After a long ascent, at about 38,969 meters, some 24 miles up, he stepped out onto the capsule’s ledge, saluted and jumped.
The free fall was expected to last five to six minutes. Baumgartner opened his parachute after 4 minutes and 19 seconds. On the way down he reached 1,357.64 km/h (843.6 mph), Mach 1.25, becoming the first person to break the sound barrier without any form of engine power. He briefly spun out of control before stabilizing, and landed safely in the desert east of Roswell, lifting his arms in celebration.
The date also happened to be the 65th anniversary of test pilot Chuck Yeager’s first flight to break the sound barrier.
Records
Baumgartner set records for the highest manned balloon flight and the highest-altitude jump, beating Kittinger’s mark. Around 30 cameras on the capsule, the ground and a helicopter recorded the event. His altitude record was later surpassed by Alan Eustace in 2014.
The marketing result
The broadcast was the point. According to YouTube, more than 9.5 million people watched the jump live at the same time, then a record for the most concurrent views of a live stream on the platform. Millions more watched on TV and in replays.
Why it worked
- It was real. Nothing was staged. The risk, the records and the science made it news rather than advertising.
- The brand was the host. Red Bull didn’t buy space next to the event; it owned the event, and its logo was in every shot.
- It fit the promise. “Red Bull gives you wings” had never been demonstrated so literally.
- It was built for live streaming. Suspense, a clear moment of truth and a global audience made it ideal for the internet era.
Legacy
Red Bull Stratos is regularly cited as one of the greatest pieces of branded content ever made, and a model for companies that act as media producers rather than advertisers. It also showed how far a brand can go when its marketing is built on an attitude, adventure and risk, rather than on the product itself.