Shaun White and Red Bull – a unique example in sponsor activation.
First of all I have to admit that I am a huge skeptic when it comes to Olympic Sports that require judges to decide the winner.. if Ice Dance is in the winter Olympics then why not Ballroom Dancing in the summer Olympics? Well, to be honest I don’t think either should be there! And my cynicism of this extended to Snowboard Half-pipe until this Olympics. Again, another sport where judges decide who gets the gold medal… except this year in Vancouver one athlete was so far ahead of his competition there was little controversy about the judges decision. As far as staying true to Olympic ideals, Shaun White was quite literally higher, faster and stronger than anyone else. By a long way. In case you missed his gold medal winning performance you can watch again here on NBC’s excellent video streaming site.
What’s more remarkable about Shaun White’s victory is the role that his sponsor Red Bull played in ensuring their man won gold. Instead of just paying White to appear in one of their ad’s, or putting their logo on his kit.. Red Bull went to quite unique lengths to do everything they could to guarantee White was on top on his game in Vancouver. And no.. they didn’t do this by just plying him with Red Bull so he was wired for the final…
Red Bull Project X was a unique exercise in athlete sponsorship, in a sport that requires ever more advanced tricks they went to the extreme length of building White his own private, top secret half pipe in a mountain wilderness. Equipped with a gymnastic style foam pit at the end of the pipe, this let White push the limits of his sport to create new tricks that let him win gold in Vancouver. All in top secret, away from his competitors… none of whom will have enjoyed the same access to such a world class training facility. Its as if Sir Clive Woodward, Englands World Cup winning Rugby Coach famous for meticulous, top secret preparation had planned Whites approach to training! In addition the project sits perfectly with Red Bull’s history of creating unique branded events which generate both great exposure and highly compelling content.
For me Red Bull’s activation hits the spot so perfectly as they were quite literally instrumental in helping White win Gold, the same can’t be said of the many other Olympic Sponsors trying so hard to associate themselves with Olympic athletes in order to activate their sponsorship (VISA, Coke, P&G, GE etc).
The Business of Sports website sums it up nicely. “They didn’t just slap their logo on one of White’s boards, they instead found a way to help him achieve his goals, thereby making the partnership valuable from both perspectives.”
