Happy 16th birthday RedBalloon

What were you doing back in 2001? Listening to Lady Marmalade on repeat? Cringing over the first ever season of Big Brother? Swooning over Brittany, JT and their double denim get up? Or collecting butterfly hair clips?

While these various crimes against fashion, music and entertainment were being committed, we were busy launching RedBalloon! That’s right, this year we turn sweet 16.

We’re proud to have been providing our customers with incredible experiences for all these years. And to celebrate this milestone, we’re taking the time to look back on some of the BIG moments that shaped the Big Red Group (BRG) into the company it is today. 

1. Best Place To Work

Back in 2009, RedBalloon was named one of BRW’s top 10 Great Places to Work for the first time – we continued to make the list 5 times running, a feat only ever managed by nine companies. At the time, RedBalloon’s founder Naomi Simson wrote a blog post about what this honour meant to her and why she’s so focused on employee engagement. “No amount of money (or perks) will keep people long term if you don’t capture their hearts and minds. It is a question of having a shared sense of purpose, that each person here knows what it is they’re here to do, that they are noticed for their contribution and ultimately they go home feeling like a winner because they know how they have made a difference,” she wrote. 

2. Selling Our Millionth Experience 

The momentous occasion of shipping out the one millionth RedBalloon experience, serendipitously happened at 11:22am on April Fool’s Day in 2011. These days there are over 4000 experiences on RedBalloon.com.au which thousands of customers get to enjoy every year. And we’ve now delivered more than 3.6 million experiences! It took us 10 years to hit the first million and only five more years to deliver double that. 

3. Surfing Santas

In December 2015 RedBalloon broke the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest surfing lesson. Bondi Beach was overrun with 320 surfing Santas. While the event was all about having fun, it was also in support of the charity ‘One Wave’ - a non-profit Bondi surf community raising awareness for mental health.

4. Skydiving Santas

Christmas is always a special time of year at RedBalloon and after the success of the Surfing Santas, we took our record breaking to new heights in 2016. We attempted a Guinness World Records FIRST for the most tandem parachute jumps in an 8-hour period and we are now the proud World Record holders with a total 155 jumps! 

5. The launch of the Big Red Group 

RedBalloon has grown a lot over the years, and earlier this year we launched the Big Red Group. The BRG provides management and services to its subsidiaries RedBalloon, Redii, Wrapped, The Huddle and Marketics. At its core, the BRG is all about supporting Australian business owners. You can find out more about the aims and goals of the BRG here.