For Red Bull, It's Here, There and Everywhere

Though it is the company's first experience with stock cars, Red Bull's two Formula One teams can be looked to as a model of their unconventional approach. Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso purchase their engines from Ferrari, but without sponsorship obligations, they can opt to go elsewhere.

For the drivers, this arrangement simplifies their lives.

"When you're driving for a team like Mercedes, you represent DaimlerCrysler; you represent Mobil, Siemens, Hugo Boss. You've got a range of companies," said Formula One driver David Coulthard. "You then have to walk a much finer line of what is politically correct for each of these sponsors. When you have one owner and it's a drink company, then it allows you to be, for better or worse, yourself."

Vickers elected to sign with Red Bull for similar reasons.

"Any business has its budget, but under a normal structure, an owner has a very strict budget from a sponsor and that's it and they have to work under those restraints," Vickers said. "But when the sponsor owns a team, that dynamic is a little bit different."

And then emerged that bit of teenage rebellion that has made the drink so popular in the first place.

"They don't have to answer to anybody because the owner and sponsor are one in the same," Vickers said.

Coming to America

Red Bull's presence in the United States is not as definitive as it is in Europe, and Bartelli suggests the company may appear bigger than it truly is.

"Could Pepsi or Coca-Cola have done it? Absolutely, and it would have been a nominal figure in their books," Bartelli said.

Brandon Steiner, of Steiner Sports Marketing, says Red Bull has succeeded because it has aligned itself with the racing industry, which is ahead of the curve in terms of its business partnerships, and it has created and executed new and unconventional ideas. That and Red Bull has chosen a sport whose characteristics parallel those attached to the concept of an energy drink.

"It's a good relationship with what the drink stands for and what the sport stands for," Steiner said. "It doesn't surprise me to see that kind of synergy. It makes total sense, and I see more and more companies doing that."

However, there also is a risk that Red Bull -- which Mateschitz says is embodied by individuality, risk-taking and joie de vivre -- could extend itself too far.

In 2004, Major League Baseball forged a partnership with Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios to help promote the movie "Spider-Man 2." Webbed logos were scheduled to appear on the bases and the on-deck circles during a weekend set of interleague games. It was not well received.

"It was sacred ground up to that point," said Bill Glenn, the vice president of insights and analytics at the Marketing Arm. "The backlash that the public created gave cause to saying that maybe we don't want this kind of publicity. There is a threshold of how much marketing one sport can take. Where that threshold is, is anyone's guess."

It thus seems like Red Bull is willing to straddle that line as best it can. Naming the New York Red Bulls after their corporate owner was less risky because corporate ownership in an international sport such as soccer is common. However, Carter believes that the notion of buying a team and completely rebranding it will not immediately have multiple followers, in part because the traditional sports seem to resist it. However, over time, this could all change.

"You might be seeing a fundamental shift in preferences among the next generation of consumers," Carter said. "It's sort of playing out in front of us."