Imagine someone asks you, “Hey, do you want to jump from the edge of space?”
Your first response would probably be, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Honestly? Same.
But when that exact question was asked to Felix Baumgartner, he basically went, “Yeah, sure. Why not?”
Now, you might be wondering who on Earth was crazy enough to ask that question in the first place.
Enter our main protagonist: Red Bull
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the story of the Red Bull Stratos mission: a man crazy enough to jump from the edge of space, a company crazy enough to fund it, and a PR gamble that somehow paid off spectacularly.
Five Minutes of Marketing So the Rest Makes Sense
Quick disclaimer: Everything you’re about to read comes from me spending the last few hours buried in articles, reports, and marketing resources because apparently that’s what I do for fun now. I tried reading an actual marketing textbook, but it made me question reality, so I fled to Wikipedia, reports, and other resources instead. If I get something wrong, please let me know! Constructive corrections are always welcome—I like learning more than pretending I’m right.
Enough corporate jargon. Let's throw a man out of space.
Earned Media Value (EMV)
Yes, EMV.
Now switch the M and the E, and you get Max Emilian Verstappen—okay, that’s not how names work. You get Max Verstappen. But let’s not get distracted.
Earned Media Value (EMV) is the estimated dollar value of publicity a brand receives without paying for it directly.
Wikipedia says:
“The estimated dollar equivalent of unpaid public exposure.”
Which is technically correct, but sounds like a corporate robot wrote it.
So here’s the version my brain understands:
You do something. People can’t stop talking about it. You didn’t pay them to talk about it. That’s EMV.
Customer reviews? EMV.
Influencers posting because they genuinely found something cool? EMV.
News articles? EMV.
People sending the campaign to their friends? EMV.
Throwing a man out of the edge of space?
Yeah... people are definitely going to talk about that.
Spoiler alert: they did. A lot.
So how is EMV calculated?
A simplified formula looks something like this:
EMV = (Total Impressions × Industry CPM) ÷ 1,000
- Impressions = How many times people saw the content.
- CPM = Cost Per Mille (the cost of reaching one thousand people through advertising).
Basically, it estimates how much money the brand would have had to spend on advertising to achieve the same amount of attention.
Some companies also factor in engagement, audience quality, creator influence, and even audience sentiment. After all, ten million people saying, “This campaign is brilliant,” and ten million people saying, “This campaign is terrible,” are two very different outcomes.
So why do brands care about EMV?
Because it lets them estimate the value of all the buzz they generated without paying directly for every conversation.
Imagine your campaign gets millions of people talking. If buying that same amount of attention through traditional advertising would’ve cost millions of dollars, that’s exactly what EMV is trying to estimate.
One very important thing to remember:
EMV is not real revenue.
It isn’t money sitting in Red Bull’s bank account.
It’s simply a way of estimating the advertising value of the attention they earned.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Compared to EMV, ROI is wonderfully straightforward.
ROI simply measures how much profit (or loss) you made compared to how much you invested.
The formula is:
ROI = (Net Profit ÷ Cost of Investment) × 100
Where:
- Net Profit = Money earned − Money spent
- Cost of Investment = Everything you invested into the project
Let’s use a simple example.
Suppose you invest $1,000 into something.
At the end, you make $1,500
Your net profit is:
$1,500 − $1,000 = $500
Now calculate the ROI:
ROI = (500 ÷ 1,000) × 100 = 50%
That means your investment generated a 50% return.
A positive ROI means your investment made money.
A negative ROI means you lost money.
(Or, as I like to call it, congratulations—you’ve invented a very expensive hobby.)
So what’s the difference between EMV and ROI?
EMV asks: “How valuable was all the attention we earned?”
ROI asks: “Did we actually make money compared to what we spent?”
One measures exposure.
The other measures financial performance.
We’ll need both of these in a minute because Red Bull Stratos wasn’t just an engineering miracle.
And that's exactly why Red Bull Stratos is still taught as one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever executed.
The Jump: When a Beverage Company Decided Gravity Was a Marketing Opportunity
Somewhere inside Red Bull, on what was probably a completely normal Tuesday, someone had a thought.
A completely normal thought, according to Red Bull standards. Which is already slightly concerning, because Red Bull’s definition of “normal” has historically been questionable.
“Everyone is doing television commercials, right?”
Someone else probably replied:
“Yeah?”
Then came the question that changed everything:
“What if we didn’t make a commercial?”
“What if we made an event?”
At the time, YouTube livestreaming was still a relatively new idea. Instead of buying a traditional advertising slot, Red Bull could create something people would actively choose to watch.
Something impossible.
Something nobody had ever seen before.
The question became:
What could possibly be big enough to capture the world’s attention?
And then someone said:
“What if a man jumped from the stratosphere?”
Now, most companies would probably stop here and call it a concerning brainstorming session.
Red Bull looked at the idea and apparently said:
“Excellent. Let’s do it.”
And just like that, Red Bull Stratos was born.
With an estimated investment of around $50 million, Red Bull wasn’t simply funding a stunt. They were funding a scientific mission, an engineering challenge, and one of the boldest marketing gambles in history.
Fifty million dollars is the kind of money that makes normal people rethink buying a coffee.
Red Bull looked at that amount and thought:
“Perfect. Let’s use it to make a human being fall from the sky.”
Unlike certain Formula 1 teams that shall remain unnamed (Ferrari, I’m looking at you), Red Bull actually had a plan.
And somehow, they executed it.
The Man Behind the Suit
Enter Felix Baumgartner.
An Austrian skydiver with years of experience performing extreme jumps, Felix was not exactly someone who looked at a dangerous idea and immediately walked away.
When Red Bull approached him with the idea of jumping from the stratosphere, his reaction was essentially:
“Why not?”
Which is either the bravest sentence ever spoken or the sentence responsible for several safety engineers losing sleep.
But this wasn’t just a man standing on a platform and falling.
Behind that jump were scientists, engineers, safety experts, pressure suits, a specially designed capsule, and a massive helium balloon carrying Felix nearly 39 kilometers above Earth.
Basically, hundreds of extremely intelligent people worked together to make sure one person could safely do something that sounded like a rejected cartoon plot.
The Jump That Broke Records
On October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner stepped out of his capsule approximately 39 kilometers above Earth.
During his free fall, he reached a maximum speed of around 1,357 km/h, making him the first person to break the sound barrier during a free fall.
The entire event was livestreamed, from the balloon launch to the moment Felix stepped into the unknown.
And that was the genius part.
This was not a commercial people had to sit through before watching something else.
This was the thing people wanted to watch.
The jump itself lasted around 10 minutes, with approximately 4 minutes and 20 seconds spent in free fall before his parachute opened.
What looked like a man simply falling from the sky was actually years of preparation, engineering, testing, and scientific collaboration.
The Gamble
And that was the terrifying part.
Red Bull had spent years preparing for a moment that would last only a few minutes.
But those few minutes had the potential to become one of the greatest marketing successes ever created.
Or…
a very expensive, very public disaster.
Because this was not a pre-recorded commercial where a company could quietly delete the footage and pretend nothing happened.
This was live.
The entire world was watching.
And the internet, famously known for being calm and reasonable during unexpected events, was waiting.
If something went wrong, millions of people would see it happen in real time.
Red Bull wasn’t just risking $50 million.
They were risking their reputation.
They had spent years preparing for a moment that would last only a few minutes.
And then Felix stepped out of the capsule.
Remember That $50 Million?
Here’s the funny part.
At no point during the livestream did Felix stop mid-free fall, pull out a can of Red Bull, take a sip, and say,
“Wow. This gives you wings.”
Or,
“Look at me! I’m literally flying through the stratosphere!”
Weirdly enough, that wasn’t necessary.
Because he was wearing a Red Bull-branded pressure suit.
The capsule was Red Bull-branded.
The parachute was Red Bull branded.
The massive helium balloon carrying him nearly 39 kilometres into the sky?
You guessed it.
Also Red Bull branded.
They didn’t interrupt people’s attention.
They became the attention.
Nobody tuned in because they wanted to watch an advertisement.
They tuned in because they thought,
“Oh my God. Someone is actually going to jump from the edge of space.”
Humans have a fascinating habit of stopping to watch extraordinary things unfold.
A world record.
A rocket launch.
A solar eclipse.
A historic sporting moment.
When something unbelievable happens, people naturally gather around it.
Red Bull understood that psychology.
Instead of asking millions of people to spend thirty seconds watching their advertisement...
...they created something millions of people willingly spent hours watching.
And the brand just happened to own that moment.
That’s the genius.
Because Red Bull has never really sold caffeine.
They’ve sold adventure.
They’ve sold risk.
They’ve sold the idea that normal is boring.
People don’t buy Red Bull because it’s simply an energy drink.
They buy into everything the brand represents.
Whether that’s Formula 1, cliff diving, mountain biking, air races, or a man casually deciding gravity is optional.
Then the internet did what the internet does best.
It talked.
Memes.
News articles.
Reaction videos.
Teachers showing it in classrooms.
Friends sending each other the livestream.
Every conversation became free advertising.
Exactly what we talked about earlier with Earned Media Value.
The numbers speak for themselves.
Nearly eight million people watched simultaneously on YouTube.
Hundreds of millions watched clips afterwards.
The campaign generated an estimated $6 billion in earned media value.
And perhaps most importantly...
Everyone remembered who made it happen.
Red Bull didn’t interrupt millions of people to tell them they were exciting.
They did something so exciting that millions of people interrupted their own lives to watch.
That’s the difference.
Sometimes the best advertisement...
...isn’t an advertisement at all.
