Why Red Bull Sponsoring Felix Baumgartner's Space Jump is a Branding Master Piece

Red Bull's rise as a global brand is phenomenal. It created singlehandedly the energy drink category and rules it in over 160 countries around the world. A great case of Blue Ocean strategy in a business that many thought would be the playground of Coca-Cola and Pepsi for years to come. Red Bull seems to be able to apply their own slogan 'Red Bull gives you wings' perfectly to their own business. In an almost perfect orchestration of sponsoring extreme sports that are adventurous, fast paced or downright dangerous, Felix Baumgartner's jump from the edge of space fits completely.

Or does it? Interestingly enough Felix was taken into near orbit by a helium balloon slowly rising for nearly two hours. Getting out of the cabin came across as a needlessly long and tedious process. When he finally made through the hatch, having no wings he plunged back to earth, exceeding the sound barrier in the process and landed after only 4 minutes. Where were the Red Bull wings in this process? Felix speeding down made me think about the story of a certain Icarus and has hand-made wings.

From a Brand perspective this whole thing should have been the other way around. Felix  should have been catapulted to 39 kilometers altitude in some crazy plane, preferably of some obscure Russian brand. Then we would have seen him whizzing down in a space suit with wings that would unfold once reaching the earth's atmosphere allowing him to slowly glide back to earth while being followed by a helicopter or flying camera.


But so much for the Wings in Red Bull's Brand slogan.

Of course the whole Jump from the Edge of Space is a great fit with the Red Bull brand, I would even say a Branding Masterpiece. The world records that were set or broken will stay for a while to come and will be associated with the brand's extreme-sports image. Red Bull's wings do apply to dare-devil character of this event and today you wouldn't be able of another sponsor that would remotely have the means and the Brand story that Red Bull has.

The big surprise to me though was that only 7 Million people followed the jump live on the web on YouTube. I have not seen any other 'eyeball' statistic so I am really wondering, did only 7 Million people watch this fantastic project? I hope not. 

For the other Millions who missed this fantastic stunt, here is the Red Bull Stratos website.