Taking product marketing to new heights

If you'd been in Central Park on June 12th, you might've looked up and seen something unusual—a guy on a BMX bike soaring 54 feet above the ground, roughly the height of a six-story building. No, it wasn't a promotion for the latest Spiderman movie. It was wild-mannered Kevin Robinson, BMX biking legend, setting a new world record and capturing the attention of thousands of wide-eyed New Yorkers at the same time for event sponsor Red Bull.

The Red Bull Experiment, which showcases the world's best athletes as they push the boundaries of what's humanly possible, was produced by the sports marketing agency Aura360, which is a partially owned sister company of VIA. Founded to animate client brands through the creation and development of emerging sports properties, Aura360 is all about taking marketing messages to the streets in a way that guarantees they'll reverberate around the world. Robinson's Red Bull Experiment not only stopped New Yorkers in their tracks, it received live coverage on CNN, ESPN News, MSG network and a host of other media outlets. David Letterman even stopped by, and later interviewed Robinson on his Late Show. The weekend concluded with a Red Bull-sponsored river flume ride that thousands more city residents enjoyed as part of Central Park's Adventures NYC program.

For Aura360, which also owns and manages the Jeep World of Adventure Sports television series on NBC, the Baja 1000 and other world-class properties, generating this kind of publicity is almost old hat. But for advertisers looking to venture beyond the confines of traditional media and marketing, their work is proof that successful mass marketing can start on a very local level.