Looking Again

Red Bull buried treasure chests across German cities one year. More than sixty of them scattered across more than sixty cities, each one hidden according to coordinates released online. Inside: event tickets to their sports spectaculars, limited-edition refrigerators, codes that unlocked more prizes. Transparent marketing machinery, obviously.

I looked at the website, grabbed the coordinates for my nearest city, and did nothing with them. But friends who actually went out and found one—they had this genuine excitement afterward that caught me off guard. Not about the stuff inside. About the hunt itself. About stepping into the city with a map and coming out of it having found something real, like they were kids again.

Red Bull understood this. They knew you don’t really stop wanting to find treasure; you just stop looking because you’re supposed to be grown up. So they created a space where looking again felt allowed. The strategy isn’t subtle—you can see the design of it—but that doesn’t make the experience feel false. Treasure hunts work. They always have.

There’s something efficient about it. They identified something genuine that people want (small adventure, discovery, things that feel found rather than bought) and attached their brand to it. The machinery is visible but the longing is real.

I never found a chest. But maybe that’s part of it too—the possibility, the fact that somewhere people were looking, that small corners of the city were briefly organized around mystery and the chance of something good turning up. For a moment the city is different. And then it isn’t.