# Moving Products through Games *What does Cocaine Cowboys and Red Bull have in common? It’s not the product they were pushing but rather their ability to create an…* By [Blossom Network](https://paragraph.com/@blossom) · 2021-09-20 --- What does Cocaine Cowboys and Red Bull have in common? It’s not the product they were pushing but rather their ability to create an ecosystem of monetization for their product. This is the common thread they share. In the case of Cocaine Cowboys, morality aside, Willy Falcon and Sal Malguta were able to funnel their millions into becoming Speedboat race kings. Aside from the ability to move cocaine under the guise, the duo had sponsors and made a number of philanthropic moves back into their community. Red Bull, on the other hand, pushes a legal product but their branding can be found throughout all your favorite extreme sports. 15 years ago, I remember chasing down Red Bull cars on campus for free cans. Nowadays, Red Bull has their own TV network, their own teams within Extreme sports like F1 racing, Breakdancing, etc. They are also a frequent partner at events all while still having their cars on the road akin to the ice cream trucks seen on an occasional basis. These techniques of marketing are not entirely unique to Red Bull and Cocaine Cowboys but rather they play off the ability to create an ecosystem of monetizable assets in a game. We can look to sports for more examples of this. Monetizable assets in sports allow for a consortium of companies to advertise/ build their customer base in a single ecosystem. Let’s take a look at the NBA and F1 racing below. Did you ever notice that the brands advertised on the Aqua locations change dynamically throughout the game? Lewis Hamilton’s suit alone has over $154 M worth of sponsorships on it Millions of dollars are spent on these assets in order to magnify product placement towards a targeted customer base. Companies are aware and share a number of traits amongst their consumers’ demographics. Collectively, these points can be rotated/leased on contracted terms all while the actual game continues on the surface as intended. This is just the tip of the iceberg and doesn’t get into the economies/gamification around betting, fantasy sports, and TV viewership. Furthermore, this concept of marketing is not limited to major corporations and can be utilized amongst ourselves and our individual social capital. To get started, it’s important to understand your market, partners, and options for the gamification of these monetizable assets. To summarize and conclude the opportunities with this marketing strategy, let’s consider some building blocks. * Game rules * Tiers of Participants Examples: - Vegas tables have different levels for different size pockets - Video games have different levels of difficulty The overall incentive is to provide more opportunities to reach different types of participants (from dabblers to full-on stans) * Buy-in, Entry Fee, Cost of access to the game * Physical/Digital points of advertising and sponsorship * Opportunities for betting/forecasting Finally, the type of game is important. This doesn’t have to be a sport or a video game but even something as simple as betting on a staring contest amongst friends can be monetized. You could even break it into teams and go the extra step to have it broadcasted if the market exists. At the end of the day, the possibilities are endless and can be very rewarding to the super creative/innovative. [https://jalopnik.com/cocaine-cowboys-the-kings-of-miami-shows-how-drug-king-1847616114](https://jalopnik.com/cocaine-cowboys-the-kings-of-miami-shows-how-drug-king-1847616114) [https://coschedule.com/blog/red-bull-marketing-strategy](https://coschedule.com/blog/red-bull-marketing-strategy) --- *Originally published on [Blossom Network](https://paragraph.com/@blossom/moving-products-through-games)*