STEP 3: Using that company, brand, etc. from STEP 2, post your thoughts on the effectiveness or failures of their marketing message though use of internet/digital/social media.

20200501184729int_mktg_red_bull_social_media_strategy.pdf

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Management homework help >STEP 3: Using that company, brand, etc. from STEP 2, post your thoughts on the effectiveness or failures of their marketing message though use of internet/digital/social media.

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Three hallmarks of Red Bull’s social media content strategy

By Sean Cole | February 19th 2020

‘Brands as publishers’ is a concept that many marketers see as fruitless. But one brand that has

certainly seen success from its own media is Red Bull.

Red Bull has become almost as synonymous with sports, music and stunts, as it has with energy

drinks.

The brand has been taking over the world with a mixture of sports team ownership, sponsorships and

partnerships fostered through its globally distributed multi-platform media company, Red Bull Media

House.

Back in 2014, then Red Bull Media House managing director Werner Brell explained, “what we do

always has to come with some form of paycheck, whether advertising, licensing or a coproduction

deal”. In other words, Red Bull’s Media House effectively subsidises some of its own branding and

advertising (or vice versa, however you want to think about it).

Red Bull Media House focuses on sports, culture and lifestyle content across TV, digital, audio, and

print and produces and licenses a broad selection of global live events, compelling and inspirational

local storytelling with original short and long-form programming – in addition to feature films from

around the world.

blurred the boundaries between entertainment and marketing.

Red Bull distributes a lot of its content through social media and this is the focal point of this article;

to look at what tactics and strategies the energy drinks brand uses to keep its audience’s thirst for high-

octane content quenched.

Breadth of content

Red Bull’s remit extends beyond sports and into music, culture and lifestyle and this range of interests

creates broad appeal in its target market.

Red Bull has a number of social media accounts spanning its owned sports teams (e.g. Aston Martin

Red Bull Racing), sports in which it has partnered with athletes (e.g. Red Bull Snowboarding or

Surfing) and its music accounts (e.g. Red Bull Music Academy, which was shuttered last year).

Taking the brand’s Formula 1 team as an example – outside of the brand’s main social accounts, the

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing social accounts are amongst its most heavily engaged, with millions of

followers across the major social platforms, and a lot of follower engagement. This is particularly

Web link: https://econsultancy.com/three-hallmarks-of-red-bulls-social-media-content-strategy/

prevalent on Twitter, where F1 enthusiasts can spark discussion or join in on conversations with the

brand.

redbullracing 3.9m followers View Profile

View More on Instagram

82,460 likes redbullracing

You can bank on @maxverstappen1 being ready to tackle the last corner at Zandvoort He’s had some practice 🇳🇱 #DutchGP #Formula1 #F1 #RedBullRacing #Zandvoort #MaxVerstappen #RedBull #givesyouwings # view all 670 comments

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The same could be argued about Red Bull’s Music Academy, a platform that spread across radio, print

and digital, and was run with emerging artists and fans in mind. As Ed Gillett writes for The Quietus:

“In this, RBMA came closer than most to realising the best of what a brand-funded music platform

could achieve. It’s clear that its staff and contributors cared deeply about the creative cultures fostered

within it; light-touch branding, and funding divorced from click rates or advertising imperatives,

enabled that culture to exist as an end in itself, rather than being circumscribed by an immediate need

to sell energy drinks.”

rbma View Channel

In the world of football, RB Leipzig is Red Bull’s 11-year-old football team that, though it faced some

backlash on its introduction into German Football, exemplifies Red Bull’s willingness to push the

boundaries of what a brand is capable of, and the kinds of content it can produce.

RB Leipzig (from ) @DieRotenBullen

"Ich hoffe, dass #Tottenham nach diesem #Achtelfinale weiß, wer

wir sind!" @TimoWerner und @yussufyurary im Interview vor

dem #ChampionsLeague-Kracher

Zum nachlesen bit.ly/Werner_Poulsen…

Das gesamte Video bit.ly/Werner_Poulsen…#SPURSRBL

144 11:45 AM - Feb 17, 2020

See RB Leipzig (from )'s other Tweets

Red Bull social content is also driven by its partnerships with athletes. Exclusive YouTube series like

‘Who is JOB?’ (which follows professional surfer James O’Brien) are effective tools for giving

followers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into an athlete’s life, using both the brand and the athletes’

popularity to target specific audience segments, in a way that feels authentic.

The unfiltered and raw nature of some its docuseries helps Red Bull show off its athletes in a way even

traditional sports brands can’t and further demonstrates the lengths and risks they are will to take to

produce content.

Interestingly, Red Bull states that it doesn’t accept applications from people looking for sponsorship,

indicating the brand is selective with the athletes that it works with and the content it wants to produce

collaboratively and this self-awareness extends to Red Bull’s use of technology too.

Speaking with FIPP, Red Bull Media House’s CEO for TV, publishing and operation commented that

Red Bull Media House “is well aware that they need to push the boundaries of technology to continue

to deliver with innovative ideas and platform experiments,” – a stance that shows a brand that knows

its content delivery has to be dynamic to remain successful.

Video is everything

The main thing you notice from Red Bull’s approach to social content is its reliance on video. Pretty

much every post on its various social accounts is a video.

Red Bull’s main YouTube channel boasts over 9 million subscribers, with a further 3.9 million across

its smaller channels. You can find mini-series, short documentaries, longer-form video content and

livestreamed events across motorsports, surfing, music, gaming and snow sports.

On Instagram, Red Bull shares similar content but in a much shorter form, coming up with creative

ways to repurpose content.

redbull 13.4m followers View Profile

Of course, Red Bull’s most famous video was its world record ‘Space Jump’ with Austrian daredevil

Felix Baumgartner back in 2012. The event was livestreamed on YouTube and drew over 2.6 million

social media mentions on the day.

It can be argued Red Bull and Felix’s Space Jump paved the way for brand livestreaming activations

like Nike’s Breaking 2 which saw the sports brand follow Eliud Kipchoge’s attempts to break the two-

hour marathon barrier.

Red Bull’s use of perspective in video is another clever way the brand brings its sponsored events to

life, this time via its partnership with GoPro, which began in 2016.

Using GoPro, the brand has experimented with point-of-view videos, 360-degree photos and higher

quality close-ups of the action on its social channels; diversifying the type of content consumers

expect and giving fans a front row seat in the action.

Red Bull’s Air Race, Soap Box Race and Rampage are amongst the brand’s marquee sponsored events

– attracting spectators to its online live-stream or post-event content – and are great places to look for

Red Bull’s use of video.

Product (or lack of)

Though Red Bull still does traditional advertising such as TV spots for its energy drinks and humorous

print ads, Red Bull does very little product marketing on its profiles. You’ll see the occasional can of

its famous energy drink (see below), but you’ll never see a post selling it explicitly, or its benefits and

taste.

redbull 13.4m followers View Profile

The brand opts to place its distinctive logo and brand colours everywhere from its athletes’ attire,

props and equipment, to the vehicles used for its numerous races on land, air and sea. Red Bull

obviously sees the bigger picture in pushing its brand codes without needing to include a can of soda.

Take Red Bull’s Organics drink, as an example. Launched in 2018, to provide its consumers a “100%

natural and organically certified” soft drink, you’ll have a hard time finding Organics on any official

social media accounts.

This would be surprising for most other FMCG brands, that use social media as a vehicle to drive

interest and sales of its brand-new products.

Red Bull Media Network’s CEO Gerrit Meier perfectly describes the brand by saying “We don’t

believe in traditional marketing; we don’t do big television commercials, we’ve never done that… we

believe that we can activate through events and great content, and that’s where we’d rather spend our

money. So doing that and having brand relevance absolutely still drives the core business. But we also

now do a lot of things where you’re like, ‘wow, that has nothing to do with the brand’, but it still really

makes good content.”

Red Bull isn’t like most other FMCG brands and the lack of social media presence for a new product

shouldn’t come as a surprise. The brand appears to be opposed to using social media as a transactional

channel, instead using the reach of social to communicate its ethos and great content that keeps the

brand famous.

By Sean Cole | February 19th 2020

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