From skydivers to canoe racers, Red Bull’s prolific sponsorship network has earned them acclaim in the marketing world. Atop their sporting kingdom lies a single jingle recognized by all: “Red Bull gives you Wiiiings”. After years of advert usage, though, the buzz from this classic slogan has started to fade. But, as all good marketers do, Red Bull’s team turned the tag-line on its head, returning it to its former glory. Here’s how:
The ad starts out with a Mission Impossible-esque scene, where an agent is tasked with disarming a bomb ticking down from 20. All aspects of the ad take for a regular Red Bull commercial: the scrappy, hand-drawn animation style, the high-stakes action scenario, and the heroic main character are all present. But, this is where expectations started to be defied.
While normally the protagonist would take a sip of a Red Bull and save the day, this time RB’s marketing team decided to flip the script. As the assistant relays orders to cut the blue wire, the secret agent delays and dilly dallys, playing around with the green and yellow wires instead. The timer ticks down quickly, still without any solution from the agent. Then…boom. No triumph. No success story. “No Red Bull, No Wings.”
So, what makes this move so powerful? Once a story has been told too many times, a model has been used too frequently, our brains start to expect certain patterns. In this case, we were fully expecting the classic hero storyline to play out. But, once these preconceived notions are subverted, our brains are pulled back into conscious awareness, trying our best to make sense of the change. Conveniently, the switch and realization occur right as the tagline and logo are being displayed, making Red Bull stick far longer in our minds and improving ad recall.
Additionally, this break from their classic ad structure improves the ad’s shareability. The new slogan seems like a limited-time gag or joke that viewers want their friends to see before the original tagline returns.
The ad might also serve as a callback to the controversy their original slogan faced back in 2021, which received widespread media coverage. A Canadian man filed a lawsuit against Red Bull, claiming that their advertising claims were deceptive as he did not, in fact, grow wings after drinking their products. Funnily enough, Red Bull paid nearly $13 million to settle the case, but this small fee might’ve been worth it in the long run. Nearly every major media outlet picked the story up, from Business Insider to BBC, generating much more public attention than the $13 million could ever get. This hidden reference could be an attempt to invoke this dispute that once put Red Bull into the spotlight, making them viral once more.
As a lesson to all marketers: break the mold. Even if you’re working for a brand without an established ad identity, try differentiating yourself from the industry standard. In a busy world chock full of ads like yours, defying expectations is the key to capturing attention. If your competitors go with paid social, try good old print. If they go left, you go right. If they promise that their product will give you wings, see what happens when you say yours won’t.
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