Just a couple weeks back, I got to meet Kevin Doohan, former Head of Digital Marketing at Red Bull. He actually reminded me about Stratos and told me to keep my eye on it. Hence, I woke up early (on the west coast) this morning and watched, tensely, the livestream of Felix’s triple-record-breaking-leap to Earth.

I asked him about what Red Bull does for their athletes. I referenced Shaun White’s now famous, but once secret, super pipe. Kevin said,“Quite honestly, those ideas just start because we’re trying to help our athletes win. Shaun was tired of kids filming his new tricks in practice and sharing it with his competitors, so we built him a pipe other people couldn’t get to.”

Of course, it was also brilliant marketing.

We’re all after that, too. Mass attention, jaw-dropping, real-time events like today.

But as usual, we’re chasing the effect, not the cause.

First, smart brands and smart marketers need to find small groups of special people, and then quite literally go to extremes to help them win. To propel them to their goals and to their mutual fame.

By the way, Kevin’s now EVP, Marketing at Machinima, another brand championing a special group of people.