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Where do Ethiopians learn to drive in the snow? This was one of the many questions going through my mind as my faithful accomplice drove through ice and the terror of whiteouts as we diligently plowed our way high into the mountains.

The answer was they don’t, Mohammet was the only taxi driver brave/foolish enough to take me on the 6 hour round trip up high into Copper Mountain. Perhaps it was because he’d only been in Denver for 3 months.

Ill prepared for Winter’s last ditch attempt at freezing her mortal subjects before the onset of Spring I shivered in line as taxi after taxi passed with driver either offended by my suggestion or simply confused as to what I was trying to achieve. It wasn’t any surprise that drivers were either confused or surprised that this crazy foreigner was asking them to drive 2 hours up into the skyline or, worse still, into the blizzard.

Mohammet however was ready and willing. Perhaps it was the $500 sweetener that made the prospect of getting stranded in the storm worth taking the risk.

I had rolled off a morning flight from Toronto to Denver mid April. My naive calculations back at base had anticipated a 2 hour journey from Denver airport to my destination Copper Mountain. The vast majority of my travel planning goes without hitch but that’s because I was travelling outside mountainous zones. All my years reading stories of mountaineering derring do I should have remembered the immortal words “mountains are unpredictable – respect the mountain.”

And here I was at Denver airport 100 miles from my target point dealing with a freak dump of early Spring snow some 1 metre deep the very morning I had arrived. Flights were cancelled, passengers stranded faced the misery of standbys and the inevitable hostile queues. Whiteouts and ice had forced police to block the mountain roads. Lines of snow-covered taxis waiting patiently for no customers to arrive.

Challenge lay ahead. Now, I like a challenge but I was starting to listen to the voices; I was cursing myself for taking up Mike Poznansky’s invite in the first place to head down to the Red Bull 1976 Games. Apart from that, my biggest concern was that – in view of the complete wireless shadow I was in – I had no idea whether or not the games were going ahead.

I mean, if it was this difficult for me to reach the mountain slopes – how did Red Bull expect students to make it? On a Saturday morning? It was looking ominous.

Two and a half thousand students also made it to the top of the mountain to take part in the snow festival an achievement that stands testament to the power of the brand’s ability to motivate and mobilize its people. Here was a tribe of passionate customers who cared about a brand not because they loved the soda, but because they loved the community it gave them.

For years Pepsi had been trying to convince us with blind taste tests but taste tests were only good if you had blind customers. Youth weren’t drinking the soda, they were drinking the can – and Red Bull was living testament to the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

“OC”, my man on the ground was warming things up. The collegiate skiers were dressed in 1976 fashion and ready to compete with a healthy dose of irreverance that set the tone for the day.

360s trumped backflips, The WoW Factor took on No Tall Tees Just Straight Skis amongst other student groupings. The mood was upbeat, fun and extreme. As field manager, OC’s job could so easily have been outsourced to an events company as is the case with so many mediocre brands. But this wasn’t mediocrity at work – this was Red Bull giving their marketing people direct access to the customer. With this kind of insight who needs focus groups?

Numbers swelled as student drifted in from around the mountains and locale to take part in the tribal gathering which Red Bull had facilitated. This was the student’s event and Red Bull had positioned itself as the social fabric of their peer group where so many rivals were geared only to consider sponsorship and advertising.

They’ll be talking about 1976 for years to come not just in college bars but also on Youtube, Facebook, Flickr and Blogs.

You see, the rewards for those who break the rules are high. Brands like Pepsi and Coke look at each other wondering what their next move will be. Paralyzed by falling market shares they summon agencies to the ivory tower to hear about the wonders of social media and mobile marketing. They fall for the silver bullet because it’s a quick fix to a long term problem – a problem that is more organizational than they’d like to admit.

For all the student partygoers that weekend, Pepsi and Coke meant little beyond a soft drink beverage because for decades these brands had told stories about themselves. Here, for the first time, was a brand that was telling a story about the partygoers by making them the main actors. No doubt the agencies will cotton on and sell an internal idea to the big guys that crowdsourcing/Facebook/mobile/in-game-advertising is the short cut to making their storytelling relevant. And, no doubt, they’ll fall for it and roll it out. The result? Pepsi Youniverse or similar – Facebook but based around the brand. Pepsi will fail at playing Red Bull’s game because it’s Pepsi.

Ethiopians don’t learn to drive in the snow but because most haven’t ever experienced snow they are not burdened by the weight of experience. Mohammet earned himself a cool $500 that weekend because all the taxi drivers were stuck in a comfort zone. Rather than earn some serious money, they’d rather plough the ranks of the airport despite minimal footfall due to cancellations. And, in the same way, many of our youth brands are the same; when faced with change they’d rather continue doing what they’ve always done because it’s familiar and comfortable even if it’s leading to slow and certain decline.