RedBull Says 'Jump' and We Say, 'How High?'

Sponsoring famous athletes is one of the best and often most expensive marketing tools. The biggest stars in world-known sports like football, basketball and Formula1 are real heroes for a wide range of people. These individuals represent something unique and certainly all the big brands know this. Some stars embody the brands’ key communication messages. Just think about the world cup’s Nike “Write the future” ad with Cristiano Ronaldo: simply the best - this is what Nike wants to say. Although the campaigns are effective, this type of sponsorship costs an extremely large sum of money and there are many competing companies in each sport market. So what can a brand do if its aim is to sponsor as a marketing tactic but doesn’t want to get lost in a completely penetrated market? RedBull knows the answer.

The energy drink giant noticed that the most effective way of marketing is doing something spectacular to raise the public’s interest. By choosing this method, the company started to invest in various types of extreme sports. Not just on an individual or team level; comprehensively into the whole world of dangerous but spectacular sports. Their flags are everywhere, from small snowboard shows to the most well-known technical air races. With a brilliant sense of business and communication RedBull has become the first brand to support an entire sport market.

Of course, the phenomenon fits perfectly into RedBull’s brand messages: almost all the sponsored parties are doing something unbelievable and full of adrenaline, for instance Crashed Ice. Or the "10 biggest and best jumps ever" video, a selection of the craziest and more daring jumps recorded in the history of mankind. You get the feeling that they have and you want to have the same…or at least something similar. The video is not an official ad, but the RedBull brand appears 6 times, meaning they are on the right track. This strategy made them one of the world’s best lifestyle brands.




It has an inestimable value: almost everyone that is attracted to extreme sports knows RedBull is his friend. With this communication strategy the brand has achieved more than just sympathy from potential costumers: it is almost a “common thought” that the company is behind everything that is related to extreme sports. By choosing this method of communication they reach many young potential costumers who are presumably in a good financial situation. The numbers speak for themselves: they have more than 12 million fans on their FaceBook site. To put it in context: the world’s 5th most valuable brand, Coca Cola has 19 million fans but another well known giant, Nike has only 3 million.

RedBull is a leading company: they are in the core position of the energy drink market and their communication activity is worth the spending. A completely innovative approach: placing the brand as a monopolistic sponsor of a sport market. They have achieved their goal- if you watch extreme sports on TV or on the web and you don’t notice any brand or logo, odds are RedBull is behind it. The marketing and PR teams did a great job: your brain associates a certain brand with videos of a phenomenon. Ruling the entire image of a genre of sports? Avantgarde thinking.