PR Case Study: The Red Bull Community

Instead of talk­ing about itself, Red Bull built a community.

At its core, Red Bull is not a unique product. The mar­ket is replete with energy drinks. ¹Red Bull. (2023, April 6). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull

However, Red Bull diverged from tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing tac­tics, choos­ing to cre­ate a vibrant com­munity of action sports enthu­si­asts and devotees.

The brand’s stra­tegic, cour­ageous, and endur­ing efforts to estab­lish this com­munity offer valu­able insights for PR pro­fes­sion­als.

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The Great Misconception: “Action Sports Are Not Real Sports”

In the early days of action sports, the broad­er sports com­munity often dis­missed these activ­it­ies as little more than atten­tion-grabbing diver­sions for thrill-seekers and non-com­pet­it­ive individuals. 

Consequently, many in the sports world failed to recog­nise the genu­ine ath­let­ic ded­ic­a­tion, dis­cip­line, and tal­ent that action sports prac­ti­tion­ers pos­sessed, instead cat­egor­ising them as indi­vidu­als more con­cerned with social media recog­ni­tion and per­son­al gratification.

This dis­missive atti­tude slowly shif­ted as action sports gained vis­ib­il­ity through social media and oth­er plat­forms. A grow­ing audi­ence became increas­ingly cap­tiv­ated by the unique blend of cre­ativ­ity, ath­leti­cism, and dar­ing that action sports demanded. 

Yet, crit­ics con­tin­ued to argue that the lack of stand­ard­ised com­pet­i­tion formats and the sports’ appar­ent pri­or­it­isa­tion of style over sub­stance pre­cluded them from being taken ser­i­ously with­in the broad­er ath­let­ic community.

Empowering Action Sports Athletes by “Giving Them Wings”

In a bold move to dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself with­in a sat­ur­ated energy drink mar­ket, Red Bull stra­tegic­ally decided to cham­pi­on action sports ath­letes. The com­pany under­stood the untapped poten­tial of these ath­letes and the unique appeal of their sports. 

Red Bull effect­ively posi­tioned itself as a vital sup­port­er of this grow­ing com­munity by endors­ing, spon­sor­ing, and organ­ising events for action sports prac­ti­tion­ers. This approach allowed the brand to forge strong con­nec­tions with ath­letes and fans, cre­at­ing a loy­al fol­low­ing that exten­ded far bey­ond the reach of con­ven­tion­al advert­ising campaigns.

To main­tain a cohes­ive PR strategy, Red Bull embraced the concept of indi­vidu­als soar­ing spec­tac­u­larly through the air as their core mes­sage. This power­ful imagery aligned seam­lessly with the company’s slo­gan, “giv­ing people wings,” and rein­forced the idea that Red Bull was not only a source of energy — but also an ena­bler of extraordin­ary feats. 

By incor­por­at­ing this mes­sage into its mar­ket­ing and PR efforts, the brand effect­ively cap­tured the essence of action sports — dar­ing, exhil­ar­at­ing, and grav­ity-defy­ing — and used it to forge a spe­cial con­nec­tion with its audience.

This align­ment of the brand with the world of action sports has paid dividends for Red Bull. The company’s com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing these ath­letes and organ­ising high-pro­file events has elev­ated its image from a mere pur­vey­or of energy drinks to an influ­en­tial play­er in the sports and enter­tain­ment industries. 

Uplifting and Legitimising the Action Sports Community

Today, action sports have tran­scen­ded their pre­vi­ous status as recre­ation­al activ­it­ies and are now widely acknow­ledged as legit­im­ate ath­let­ic endeav­ours. This shift in per­cep­tion is mainly due to the grow­ing com­munity of action sports ath­letes who have demon­strated incred­ible ded­ic­a­tion, skill, and tal­ent in their respect­ive disciplines. 

Red Bull’s pat­ron­age has been crit­ic­al in this trans­form­a­tion. The brand’s back­ing has giv­en ath­letes the resources and oppor­tun­it­ies to hone their abil­it­ies and show­case their tal­ents glob­ally — and oth­er brands have fol­lowed suit. ²Van den Steen, Eric, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. “Red Bull (A).” Harvard Business School Case 714 – 401, March 2014. (Revised March 2018.)

The increas­ing involve­ment of brands has pro­foundly impacted the industry. With more resources, spon­sor­ships, and oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able to ath­letes, the level of com­pet­i­tion has ris­en, lead­ing to more sig­ni­fic­ant innov­a­tion and pro­gres­sion with­in each discipline. 

This sup­port, in turn, helps legit­im­ise action sports fur­ther, as it demon­strates that sig­ni­fic­ant brands recog­nise the value and appeal of these activ­it­ies in terms of ath­let­ic achieve­ment and marketability.

Furthermore, the grow­ing interest in action sports has expan­ded the audi­ence for these activ­it­ies, provid­ing addi­tion­al rev­en­ue streams and expos­ure for ath­letes and the brands that sup­port them. In this way, Red Bull’s pion­eer­ing approach has trans­formed its brand and reshaped the energy drink industry landscape.

Challenging Conventional Wisdom to Build a Community

Red Bull iden­ti­fied an oppor­tun­ity to con­nect with a group of indi­vidu­als often over­looked or dis­missed by the broad­er sports com­munity — the “stu­pid major­ity.” In this instance, the term refers to those who under­es­tim­ated action sports prac­ti­tion­ers’ ath­let­ic prowess and ded­ic­a­tion, often due to a lack of under­stand­ing or famili­ar­ity with these sports. 

By align­ing with the ”smart minor­ity” and sup­port­ing action sports ath­letes, Red Bull tapped into a dynam­ic and under­served mar­ket eager for recog­ni­tion and validation.

Instead of pour­ing resources into pro­mot­ing its product, Red Bull shif­ted its PR approach towards fos­ter­ing a neg­lected com­munity. By doing so, the brand cre­ated unique and enga­ging con­tent that res­on­ated with its tar­get audi­ence, show­cas­ing the incred­ible skills, ded­ic­a­tion, and achieve­ments of action sports ath­letes. ³How Red Bull Creates Brand Buzz. (2012, December 21). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/12/how-red-bull-creates-brand-buzz

This com­munity-cent­ric approach not only elev­ated the ath­letes but also served to human­ise and authen­tic­ate the Red Bull brand, demon­strat­ing its genu­ine com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the action sports community.

The suc­cess of Red Bull’s PR strategy in tar­get­ing the stu­pid major­ity offers valu­able les­sons for busi­nesses in vari­ous indus­tries. By identi­fy­ing often mis­un­der­stood or under­es­tim­ated indi­vidu­als, brands can cre­ate mean­ing­ful con­nec­tions with these out­sider com­munit­ies and lever­age their pas­sion for cre­at­ing enga­ging and authen­t­ic content. 

As more and more people become exposed to the world of action sports, the out­dated notion of these activ­it­ies as mere flashy hob­bies for adren­aline junkies and non-com­pet­it­ive indi­vidu­als is gradu­ally being replaced by a new­found appre­ci­ation for the genu­ine ath­let­ic tal­ent and determ­in­a­tion that under­pins these thrill­ing and visu­ally spec­tac­u­lar pursuits.

Literature List

Muniz, A. M., & O’Guinn, T. C. (2001). Brand com­munity. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(4), 412 – 432.

Schau, H. J., Muñiz Jr, A. M., & Arnould, E. J. (2009). How brand com­munity prac­tices cre­ate value. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 30 – 51.

Fournier, S., & Lee, L. (2009). Getting brand com­munit­ies right. Harvard Business Review, 87(4), 105 – 111.

PR Resource: The Stupid Majority