Red Bull Can You Make It?
The adventure, and project, of a lifetime
Summary:
I was incredibly fortunate to be selected by Red Bull Global Headquarters to be a Global Project Manager for Red Bull Can You Make It? This project is Red Bull’s largest single investment aimed at winning their foremost target market: college students.
Red Bull Can You Make It? Gives 600 students from 67 countries the chance of a lifetime: To travel around Europe for a week! …But they don’t have any money, or communication to the outside world. They only have cans of Red Bull to trade their way across Europe. Food, lodging, transportation, everything had to be bartered using only Red Bull. Crazy right? How is that safe? What if they get lost, robbed, or starve? Who is responsible for all 600 of those students? Well… I was. Here’s a video to help better frame up the contest: Here
My Role:
Safety. Fun. Capturing Content. Sharing Content. I helped manage a team of 17 of the world’s best Red Bull employees, all from different countries, all speaking 2-5 languages. First and foremost it was my duty to manage these employees, as they kept tabs on all 600 students. We worked together to ensure that every participant made it through the contest alive, had as much fun as possible, and captured the entire journey in the process. We operated out of “Central Command” which was a well oiled machine of 25 video production staff, and 30 event operations staff. I was a liaison between managing the operations, and ensuring video production and communications were fluid, efficient, and effective. As a result, we doubled the social media impressions of all previous years of this event combined.
Results:
26 Million Impressions on Facebook
10,000+ Earned Organic Social Media Posts
20,000 Red Bull Cans Seeded in 22 Countries
60+ Emergency Situations Successfully Resolved
Broken bones, kidnapping, missing contestants, panic attacks, hypothermia, you name it, we saw it.
600 Lifelong Red Bull Ambassadors
Day 7 Highlights and other recap videos: Here
Skills Required:
Teamwork: Receiving and delivering complicated communications to a team of 60+
Troubleshoot: Successfully resolving complex emergency situations, some potentially life threatening
Adapt: Communicating with police and authorities from 22 countries
Memorize: In depth understanding and responsibility for 600 people
Deliver: Collaborating with high paying partners and brands to deliver desired results
Hype: Maintain an incredibly high energy team morale for 7 consecutive days with little sleep
Preparation: I arrived on site 1 week early to study each team, the rules, and be as organized as possible