Most Iconic Ads of All Time: 4: RED BULL - STRATOS (2012)

The story behind the Red Bull Stratos is as fascinating as it is about daredevilry.

Red Bull, along with the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner, firmly wrote the record books while shattering many records en route.

Also, with this jump, Red Bull added high-altitude skydiving to its brand imagery.

Its slogan " Red Bull Gives you Wings" became a reality when Felix Baumgartner did his free fall, breaking the sound barrier and safely landing on earth.

It was Felix's third attempt. It was in front of a global live audience.

Baumgartner completed Red Bull’s Stratos mission on October 14th, 2012, ascending to a height of 24.5 miles (39km) in a stratospheric balloon.

He then successfully completed his descent at a top speed of 834.5mph (1,342.8 kph), capturing his journey on a GoPro camera that provided the material for the brand’s ad campaign.

The whole event was of course, highly attention-grabbing. It was also extremely engaging.

With both these metrics of virality (attention-grabbing and engaging) completely off the charts, this event became the viral event of the early part of the last decade. This was a truly spectacular and absolutely unique event and it took experiential marketing to a whole new level.

No wonder it resulted in tens of millions of dollars of awareness for the brand Red Bull.

You can see the jump here:

The space jump is supposed to have given Red Bull about 8 million eyeballs of live coverage watching the feat and Red Bull's logo.

Ben Sturner, President and CEO of Leverage Agency, a full-service sports, entertainment, and media marketing company, has quoted: "The sponsorship transcended sports and entertainment into Pop Culture, hitting new consumers that Red Bull does not usually capture, and on a global scale,"

Red Bull - of course - has used the jump to the hilt and converted this into an ever-lasting news piece for those who are interested in learning about such jumps.

You can check out their website, dedicated to the Stratos project here: https://www.redbull.com/in-en/projects/red-bull-stratos

If you are somebody who loves facts and figures and wants to learn more about the whole event, the preparation behind it, the exact speed reached, the velocity, and so on, check out the Wikipedia link here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Stratos

When a brand goes the extra mile to truly live up to the promise it is making to its consumers, it can definitely create virality. No doubts about this - as proved by Red Bull with this historic mind-boggling space jump!