“Red Bull gives you wings” … and massive promotional visibility

I hope you’ve all taken the opportunity to watch Felix Baumgartner’s extraordinary stratospheric leap, which had millions glued to their screens a couple of days ago. His personal achievement is also something of a triumph for Red Bull, the scheme’s sponsor.

I first came across Red Bull (in the classroom) when watching Secrets of the Superbrands with my students and familiarising myself with their extreme ways to sell an energy drink. Baumgartner’s jump was clearly a very, very high risk way to generate headlines. One marketing analyst is reported saying that what distinguishes Red Bull’s approach is it bravery; "to put so much money and activity" into one stunt, in front of the whole world, which could have "gone very wrong". The analyst added: "The product branding they put in place was relatively subtle, so you did see it but it wasn't overkill."

There’s quite a lot of (entirely understandable) excitement and hype at the moment, with “Red Bull worth at least £5bn after the skydive - and is set to be the next Coca-Cola”, according to some. And for relieved Red Bull executives, his safe landing represented tens of millions of pounds of media coverage. One advertising executive guessed the exposure could be worth £10m in the UK and as much as £100m worldwide. To put that in context, a 30-second ad slot during the US Super Bowl, the most prime time you can get, costs £2.2m.

“I’m completely in awe of Red Bull as a brand,” said another marketing guru. “Very few brands would have the appetite to do something so risky.” How did they dare do it?

According to TheTelegraph, it must help that rather than being answerable to shareholders, Red Bull is privately owned and led by “maverick” Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian toothpaste marketer who adapted Asia’s tonic drinks to Western taste. In a soft drinks market dominated by Coca-Cola and Pepsi, he has pioneered “experiential” marketing, where companies use events to define their brand and build loyalty.

It does not come cheap. Accounts for the UK arm show that its marketing costs were £48m last year, or 20pc of its £236m turnover. In addition, of its 181 UK employees, 52 were in marketing compared with just 15 in its finance office. Red Bull has not made public how much the jump cost to stage. The balloon that took Baumgartner on his ascent is reported to have cost $70,000 alone, even before considering funding the equipment, training and support staff. But in terms of payback from the jump, given the world coverage, "like many of its consumers, Red Bull will be feeling particularly flushed today".

Red Bull itself remains tight-lipped on the numbers involved. After all, it is so far dodging a backlash that all this daredevilry is just to plug a soft drink. But as Mateschitz says: “If this were just a marketing gimmick, it would never work.”