Viral Marketing and Red Bull's Mission to Kill Someone

Today I watched a man jump from the highest point ever. Pretty awesome to watch, considering that it was a flawless jump and he landed safely on two feet and walked away. (time passes)

Cool. . . So he landed a little more than a week ago and he has been making the talk show rounds, declared he is retired, and stated that he did not enjoy the fall until his parachute opened.

I remember watch the guy in Vegas on New Years jump a motorcross bike up and down the faux Archtriumph.  It is amazing that guy made it up and down was even crazier.  . . . powered by Red Bull

The Flugtag.  Per google: "Red Bull Flugtag is an event organized by Red Bull in which competitors attempt to fly homemade size and weight limited human-powered flying machines. The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 feet high into the sea."

It is amazing no one has been seriously hurt.  . . . powered by Red Bull.

And there are a bunch of other teams, athletes, and events that are sponsored by Red Bull and they are all high octane, high adrenaline, and high energy.  Red Bull has done a great job of finding the physical manifestation of their product and slapping a logo on it.  The most important part of their marketing strategy is that they are doing more promotional events that have the potential to go viral.  They appeal to short attention spans and are short enough that you want to and will watch them over and over again. . . powered by Red Bull.

I make no judgement about Red Bull's morality or the social effect of their campaigns.  They market their product to adults and adults should be able to know that they can not build their own flying machine and get it flying off the docks of Lake Erie.  They may actually kill someone some day, but they will continue to rack up MILLIONS of youtube views.  When posting this Red Bull had over 27 Million views of the above video.  No Gangnam Style, but pretty effective.

Now what is their cost per impression for advertising?  Well I saw their costs estimated as high as half a billion dollars.  Now that is ridiculous, right?  This message board discussing their marketing budget and estimated it at $900 Million in 2010 on revenue of $4.4 Billion.  So over 5 years, they could have dedicated 20% of their budget to the Stratos program.  Their cost per impression will continue to decline as they get more views, more mentions, and more sharing of their record breaking even.

Bottom line: They know how to get people talking about Red Bull and they know their customer profile.