Stunt marketing / Mad Men-era adman Howard Luck Gossage said, ‘People don’t read ads. They read what interests them. Sometimes it’s an ad.’ Today, the same goes for watching content online. This film doesn’t hide the fact that it’s an ad for Red Bull and Prada Linea Rossa (and tyre-maker Continental gets a look-in, too) but people will watch it anyway because it’s compelling viewing.
Over the years, Red Bull has consistently built strong associations with adrenaline sports through high-profile stunts like skydiving from space and BMXing on a hot air balloon, as well as mainstream sports through its Red Bull F1 team, its football (soccer) club the New York Red Bulls, and ice hockey team EC Red Bull Salzburg.
According to entrepreneur and investor Joe Pompliano, the energy drink company ‘spends 3x more than its competitors on advertising – 30% of annual sales compared to 10% of annual sales’. But rather than focus on traditional formats, the brand achieves virality and infiltrates mainstream media coverage by staging unique spectacles that rack up millions of impressions.
This film holds our attention while the Red Bull logo passes continuously in front of our eyes, building associations between high-adrenaline sports and the brand. And while we’ve come to expect Red Bull’s involvement in stunts like these, the incongruous appearance of the Prada logo is intriguing – somehow, of all the things happening on screen, that is the most unexpected, which makes it all the more memorable.
Unreasonable effort / In the Creative Tactics section of Contagious IQ, you’ll find our summary of the benefits of investing an observably stupendous amount of effort into campaigns. Think Honda’s 2003 Cog ad, which took over 300 attempts and over a year to perfect, or Skoda’s Cake ad, which saw eight people construct a life-size cake of its Fabia hatchback over 10 days in 2007. But unreasonable effort isn’t just entertaining, it also taps into the labour illusion: people use perceived effort as a way to discern the quality or value of an item or service. Essentially, if more effort goes into producing something, it must be worth it, so it must be better. The Red Bull Bike Express is no different – though the stunt is seamlessly smooth, the sight of Godziek finishing in exactly the same position as he started is a feat of physics that boggles the mind. It makes for compelling viewing, and it also reinforces the idea that Red Bull is a pinnacle of adrenaline sports.
