Red Bull had spent $50 million and seven years on the Stratos project - the first human jump to break the sound barrier, without an engine. In its quest to break the record for the highest skydive, Red Bull enlisted expert engineers, medical staff, and others from the scientific community, running unmanned and manned practice jumps at lower altitudes.
It was, in its singlemindedness, a remarkable achievement and one that captured the world's imagination. One YouTube video of the jump has been viewed 43 million times; others racked up millions more. And all of it - the years of engineering, the mortal risk - was contrived to sell a fizzy drink.
It's worth pausing on the uniquely mind-boggling nature of that fact, the strangeness that a feat of science and human endurance was conducted in service of something so trivial; as if Wrigley's mapped the human genome to promote a pack of gum or Heinz orchestrated a Mars landing to promote a new relish.
Whatever its absurdity, it worked.
Economists estimated that Red Bull derived $6 billion in value from the Stratos project in the form of exposure. Critically, it's a figure that will only increase in time. That is the unique benefit of owning a piece of history - anytime the event is discussed, Red Bull, implicitly, profits.
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