Felix Baumgartner Unlikely To Cash In On Red Bull Space Jump

Felix Baumgartner captured the world’s attention on Sunday with his 24 mile space jump. He set the record for highest-jump and fastest free fall velocity when he became the first person to break the sound barrier without the aid of a jet or spacecraft. It gave a monumental level of attention to the stunt’s sponsor, Red Bull, which garnered tens of millions of dollars of exposure for the energy drink brand,
which generated $5.8 billion in revenue last year. As for Baumgartner, he achieved a worldwide level of fame for the feat, but that is unlikely to lead to any riches.

“[The jump] legitimized his partnership with Red Bull, which could lock him in with them for quite some time,” says David Schwab, who works with brands at Octagon First Call on how to best use celebrities in marketing. But Schwab adds: “I don’t see much happening in terms of new sponsorship partners.”The problem is that Red Bull owns these jumps. The jump was five years in the making for the Red Bull Stratos team. We saw Baumgartner in his special suit splashed with the Red Bull logo and got updates from the Red Bull command center. How does another company come in and use Baumgartner when he is so closely identified with one brand?

Baumgartner first started working with Red Bull in 1988 when he was 19-years-old and the company was just a year-old. He did skydiving exhibitions for the company, which uses extreme sports as the center of its marketing campaigns. Baumgartner is from Salzburg, Austria, where Red Bull’s global headquarters are located. Baumgartner also counts Northland Professional and Zenith watches as partners. Both were involved with the jump.

Corporate speaking gigs would seem to be a money-making opportunity for Baumgartner. Despite his past BASE jumping exploits, Baumgartner was relatively unknown to the general populace before last week, but now he has a cool story to tell and is known by millions around the world. Schwab is skeptical there too. Speaking usually revolves around leadership lessons or motivating a sales staff. “I’m not sure he is that guy. He is an incredible daredevil, but that does not necessarily translate into speaking,” he says. Schwab would rather have a guy like Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, for a speaker.

Schwab does think another winner came out of Sunday’s jump besides Red Bull: the Internet. “It shows you can create stuff without broadcast television. You just have to figure out how to promote it,” says Schwab. The jump at its peak had eight million people watching live on YouTube. It broke the previous record of 500,000 concurrent views