Karan Patel, ‘QueenArrow’ end season on high with Red Bull deals
As 2022 draws to a close, the New Year brings with it new tidings for national rally champion Karan Patel and Kenya’s first female pro gamer Sylvia Gathoni.
Gathoni is the first Kenyan to join the enviable list of Red Bull athletes, a grouping of some of the best or promising show people on earth supported by the energy drinks company.
Red Bull sponsors more than 500 athletes worldwide in various sporting disciplines, raging from Formula One, rallying, fencing, football, extreme sports, air shows and swimming.
The key to the Red Bull marketing approach now includes musicians, DJs, a music academy and other youth initiatives, a new frontier for forward-thinking Kenyans to diversify and exploit their potential to earn a living.
Some of Red Bull's most visible athletes are world’s third highest paid footballer Neymar Junior and Formula One world champion Max Verstappen, the Red Bull F1 team leader.
Gathoni, popularly known as “QueenArrow” within the gaming circles, became the first Kenya Red Bull athlete, followed by the national rally champion Patel.
QueenArrow is currently pursuing a thriving gaming career and a law degree course at the Kenya School of Law. Few people outside her peer group know this 24-year-old whose sporting exploits are turning heads, and she is on a mission of living her philosophy of individuality.
“It's about time I had a seat at the table, if not, I'll create my own,” is her mantra.
Patel is the least spoken about athlete, never blowing his own trumpet but his form in the last six years speaks for itself.
Professional orientation
He made a debut on the WRC Portugal in 2016, aged 25, and has since been progressing to the top with marked steps, lifting the national title this year, and missing the continental trophy by a whisker after finishing behind Zambian Leroy Gomes.
His professional orientation, the strict discipline of a sportsman and focus in life earned him attention from Red Bull scouts who have been looking for Kenyans to grow and create a sense of the community identity of the energy drink brand within their resident regions.
This is a sponsorship packaging that goes beyond traditional media and PR activities as it embraces new social media marketing trends where one’s worth is determined by how one has a strong own-built influencer portfolio.
For example, Neymar has over 250 million own-created followers in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and You Tube. Verstappen has 50 million.
Part of Patel’s influence is his professional orientation as a helicopter mechanic who has joined hands with like-minded friends to form Tailwind aeronautical maintenance services.
Patel’s Facebook following is at over 17,000 and just picking up.
Red Bull’s marketing approach is best at play in the Red Bull Formula One outfit, one of the most visible and controversial teams in the last two years.
The Austria-based company looks beyond the performers as it tries to create a sense of community ownership around its market image through ordinary but exceptional promising athletes outside of traditional sports like football, athletics and rugby as is now the Kenyan situation.
Nav Sidhu, founder and managing director of the Formula One public relations and sponsorship agency Sidhu & Simon Communications, based in London, shared with New York Times Red Bull’s marketing approach which is evident in some of their sponsored events like the Red Bull air races, which attract crowds of 200,000 people to watch classic aircraft in action.
“Those people aren’t just coming out to watch acrobatic airplanes,” he said.
“They have created a global community. Now, you cannot say that about Coca-Cola, you cannot say that about Pepsi. I think probably the closest example I can give you, in terms of creating a global, loyal community, is Apple.”
The two Kenyans fill the void for Red Bull in the eastern Africa region.
The Middle East is represented by several top sports people including Nasser Al-Attiyah, a Qatari rally driver and sport shooter.
He was the 2006 Production World Rally Champion, 2014 and 2015 WRC-2 champion, a 16 time Middle East Rally Champion, five times winner of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, and a quadruple Dakar Rally winner.
Patel’s endorsement was unveiled via high-octane drifting stunts by Guinness world record holder and drift race athlete Ahmed Daham.
Daham believes drifting will grow in leaps and bounds around Kenya as it moves from the underground to the mainstream.
He drifted at the KICC and later featured in a high quality TV commercial production featuring Patel on Red Bull TV and social media platforms.
The company is already showing Patel how to pitch for sponsorship, and, certainly, will chip in for his Kenya, Africa and world championship campaigns next year. BY DAILY NATION
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