and like all good things, it started by accident. (i got this story from one of their marketing managers) once upon a time someone at the formula 1 won a race. and the masterchief (or however the bosses of the racing teams are called) drank a red bull instead of champagne during the victory interview.
next day red bull was sold out in austria (which was their main market at that time)
It’s more likely that a marketing manager would take personal credit for an accident (i.e. boosting their resume) than to attribute a brilliant marketing to an accident.
You are neglecting one issue: advertising and lawsuits. "Oh look, we have smuggled our product into the tightest-controlled advertising event, and we did it on purpose; sure, we'll happily pay you the $$$ for this priceless publicity boost." vs "Oh, it was an accident, there's no way we'll pay you anything."
I'm completely certain that the F1 organizers would sue the heck out of Red Bull for their unauthorized ad, if they only could prove RB did it on purpose (and RB isn't so foolish to provide them with ammunition).
What exactly do you think F1 would sue Red Bull for?
Without RB having a contract of some type with F1, it is unlikely there is any way for them to sue RB. It may be possible for F1 to sue the driver, but at this point that would seem ridiculous since RB is now a huge F1 sponsor.
Accidents also don't eliminate lawsuits. Even if there was a way for F1 to sue RB, they should still be able to sue them for accidents. For example, if RB had a contract with F1 which stipulated when and how RB could be shown, and RB showed their product at a different time by accident F1 could still sue them.
> next day red bull was sold out in austria (which was there main markets at that time)
This is also where the Western version of Red Bull is from. Originally it was an energy drink in Thailand and an Austrian partnered up with the Thai owner, adapted it to suit the Western palate and ever since then they have been going incredibly strong and long survived all energy-drink competitors that shortly popped up during the 90s.
Mateschitz's and Yoovidhya's net worth is about 5 billion each.
I don't think there is any important extreme sport event they are not involved in. Their annual "Flugtag" is legendary here in Austria! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull_Flugtag
next day red bull was sold out in austria (which was their main market at that time)
they just took it from there.