Red Bull Paper Wings Game

Objective

Red Bull sought to build excitement and engagement around the Paper Wings World Championships, the brand's signature global paper airplane folding competition held in Salzburg. The campaign integrated the physical finals event with a digital-first experience, positioning the online game as both a qualifier and entertainment platform that extended participation beyond geographic boundaries.

Solution

Players folded paper planes in a 3D web interface and launched them toward Salzburg on an interactive leaderboard. The campaign combined three participation tracks: university student qualifiers (physical A4 plane folding), open aerobatics category (60-second video submissions on Instagram with #redbullpaperwings), and social-boosted digital gameplay. Every Twitter retweet pushed planes higher on the leaderboard. The platform featured four app sections—Latest (leaderboards, event finder), Hangar (AR-assisted folding guides and runway testing), Achievements (12 challenges earning shareable badges), and Team Room (finalist logistics). Built on a standardized AR and web platform to ensure cost-efficiency and reusability for future Red Bull competitions.

Results

The campaign engaged 40,000 participants worldwide. Specific engagement metrics beyond the participant count were not available in public sources.