📌 Founded in 1987, Red Bull started grass roots with peer marketing in student communities, creating their own buzz in communities open to brand engagement (even if initially via freebies)
📌 Sports sponsorship became a focus the following year in 1988, with what came to become known as the Red Bull Dolomitenmann - founding the brand association with adrenaline
📌 2001 saw the launch of Red Bull originated events and team sponsorship with their name above the door and on the shelves of global sports stadiums, F1 rides and the podiums
📌 Red Bull Media House launched in 2007, bringing content creation home and centralising the original strategy that to be known, you have to create your own buzz

Brand Narratives: Red Bull

Early 00’s culture was fuelled by it. Vodka Red Bull or Jägermeister in a Red Bull puddle…followed by palpitations at 4am and a sickly sweet scent that haunted my twenties, and surely many of yours. Someone opened the tab of a Red Bull behind me in a Uni final and I was instantly transported to the last song at 3am at my Uni union. Years later, Red Bull has fully embraced the adrenaline it delivers in a can and transformed it into an alive and kicking brand story that took it from shelves to social media success with no fewer than 5 Instagram accounts focussed on speed on wheels from cycling, skateboarding & F1 to entry level soap-box derby content and seasonal adrenaline in snow. Let’s look at the Red Bull journey and how an energy drink brand branched out into energy first fun.

The Launch: Doing It Differently

Red Bull eschewed the traditional 80’s advertising path (and recall they were launching long before the internet) and started their campaign for domination with those most in need of huge, on-tap energy bursts and easy cash - students. Hiring students to appeal to students, word of mouth quickly spread.

From day 1, they refused to stick to the standard market messaging for beverages, you will almost never see ads for how refreshing Red Bull is - but you will be very familiar with the reported 'benefits' of the product...

One for another day is the successful lawsuit of a man who challenged that claim, and won $13m…

The usual taste and associations traditionally used as anchor points for drinks don’t apply here. The marketing was never about the drink experience, rather - the experience the drink enabled. It’s an easy sell if you are a beverage that is slightly unpalatable and in an unremarkable, if unusually svelte can, but looking to make an impact and stand out in an established category - go left when the others go right.

Energy = Adrenaline: A Community Story

A brand after my own heart, they pursued brand storytelling and community advocacy as their main brand growth strategy. Sports sponsorship came early, with Red Bull recognising the obvious alignment of high energy and adrenaline. First sponsoring the Dolomitenmann, an extreme team relay race founded in 1988, the year after Red Bull, the race would later become synonymous with the energy drink brand.

Athlete sponsorship first began in 1989. Austrian Formula 1 driver Gerhard Berger was the first RB sponsored athlete and set the tone for the brand’s future deep association with F1. Extreme, relatively niche sports sponsorship followed with a focus on skateboarding and motorsports including BMX and downhill mountain biking (BMT), snowboarding, windsurfing and other stunt sports. With Red Bull also bringing the noise to the same crowd with sponsorship of the after-party with DJ’s and club nights, all fuelled by the drink that gives you wiiiings.

It naturally helped that these sports each have their own highly engaged, deeply connected and usually global communities, and culturally there was a uniquely timed crossover with the popularisation of chaotic high jinx in the mainstream with Jackass. It’s genius really.

The Backer Becomes the Main Man

The next natural step for the brand was to produce their own high octane events as they strove to deepen the customer association of energy = adrenaline.

Between 2001 and 2006, Red Bull came and started taking names and gaining ground with Red Bull Air Race (motorsport-style air racing), Red Bull Rampage (downhill mountain biking), Red Bull Crashed Ice (extreme downhill skating), Red Bull X-Fighters (freestyle motocross) and later Red Bull Racing & Toro Rosso/AlphaTauri (F1) and global football/soccer clubs: RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and New York Red Bulls.

Branded events plus their brand name over the door - and on the shelves - at huge sports spaces globally - you can hardly put a price on it…Red Bull had stopped covering culture, and began to create it.

Red Bull: A Media Mogul

It was not until 2007 that Red Bull became a content house, creating their own branded chaos content, making the next shift from creating culture to producing it. Red Bull Media House followed, filmed and serially documented extreme athletes initially producing films, magazines and later curating and publishing to the digital and social media platforms we’re all now familiar with. It was another move left when the competition moves right. Coke are still pushing out single layered narrative based on thirst quenching drinks on a hot day, occasional (questionable) new flavours while Red Bull are owning the narrative in their category. New market entrants like Monster also lean into extreme sports but have less category ownership thanks to the historic and ongoing success of Red Bull.