Friday, July 25, 2008

Vancouver Red Bull Soapbox Race on Sep 7, 2008!

Woohoo! On Thursday July 3, 2008, I was watching the noon news on Global when a Red Bull representative did a promo for their soapbox race in September. The rep made some comments that their application deadline was the next day, they were still accepting submissions for potential teams, and that they hadn’t received enough submissions (it almost seemed like a plea, but not quite).

Anyways, later that night, I thought to myself, “Why not?” and quickly filled in a application, made a crappy design sketch in MSPaint (woohoo), and emailed it to Red Bull (Stoyq agreed to be a team member if it were to be accepted).

Fast forward to three weeks later (yesterday), and there’s a knock on our front door. Behold! A courier with a package… for me! From Red Bull! Woohoo!

Here’s what the letter in the package said (click to enlarge):


Dear Applicant,

Thanks so much for applying for the Red Bull Soapbox
Vancouver race! We were absolutely astounded with the number of submissions we received (over 200) and their high quality.

It made choosing our 50 teams very difficult!

Unfortunately your design did not make it in this time around, but we sincerely appreciate your efforts and hope you will join us on Sunday, September 7th, (4th Avenue, Kitsilano, 11am – 4pm) for what will be an extremely fun day!

Best wishes,
Red Bull Soapbox Vancouver


Boohoo. I sort of had a hunch my application would have been rejected after I hadn’t heard from them in after one week passed. Oh yeah, here’s my sketch that I sent to them. I think it’s funny (click to enlarge):


However, after some consideration, I figure the main reasons my idea wasn’t picked was because, well, its Red Bull. And my design, is well… a Wii. Red Bull is known for high energy, extreme, and somewhat crazy stunts (woohoo). The Wii is not only the product of another company (which would have amounted to free publicity for Nintendo) but its just not really Red-Bull-crazy (perhaps a bit more on the nerdy fanboy-ish side… although I’m pretty sure there are some gamers who drink Red Bull…) Also, it’s not really a soapbox. I agree with the people who decided to reject my submission. From a marketing perspective, it was the right thing to do.

Before I forget, here’s what was in the package with the letter:

Four free cans of Red Bull as a thank you for entering! Woohoo! Well, I thank you, Red Bull, for your kind gesture, as well as your supremely awesome public relations and marketing! I’ve never bought or drank Red Bull before (nor have I ever typed Red Bull so many times in my life) but I guess now I can say I can. Unfortunately, I will probably never buy or drink Red Bull again, at least in the near future. I mean, come on, I don’t even drink coffee! Not in my entire university life have I ever drank coffee. Not even at orientation when Renaissance Coffee was giving it away for free! Hmmm, I’m going off topic…

Anyways, I’ll probably in church during the Red Bull soapbox race in September, so congrats to the teams that made it, and I’ll be sure to catch the highlights on the news. Or on YouTube. I think I will root for this team. Not only does their design look super cool (chickens are delicious, and in their sketch, appear to be aerodynamic as well), but they were the only team I could find on the internet.

For the record, I still think my sketch is funny…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Tim! Thanks for supporting our chicken! :p

Anonymous said...

If you haven't seen by now, the chicken is road kill! But our drivers are fine.