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PR Case Study: The Red Bull Community

A potent energy boost for action sports.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

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.

Learn more:

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.


Please sup­port my blog by shar­ing it with oth­er PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. For ques­tions or PR sup­port, con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

PR Resource: The Stupid Majority

PR Strategy: The Stupid Majority

From what con­ver­sion the­ory tells us, minor­it­ies tend to hold their opin­ions more firmly. This is reas­on­able since going against the major­ity comes at a high­er social cost.

But some minor­it­ies have an addi­tion­al advantage:

Some minor­it­ies of today are the start of the new major­it­ies of tomor­row (smart minor­it­ies).

In con­trast, some major­it­ies have an addi­tion­al disadvantage:

Some major­it­ies of today will be gone entirely tomor­row (stu­pid major­it­ies).

Examples of Stupid Majorities

Stupid major­it­ies are to be found everywhere:

Riding a skate­board isn’t a real sport!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Red Bull)

Computing is about bits and bytes, not design!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Apple)

Websites and apps can­’t pro­duce movies and tele­vi­sion shows!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Netflix)

Electric cars can­’t com­pete with gas cars!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Tesla Motors)

Hotels must have hotel rooms!”
(Stupid major­ity vs AirBnB)

Taxi com­pan­ies must have tax­is!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Uber)

Media com­pan­ies must pro­duce media!”
(Stupid major­ity vs Facebook)

Identifying a stu­pid major­ity (and sid­ing with a smart minor­ity) will cla­ri­fy your core mes­sage and attract highly engaged minor­ity supporters.

Since time’s by your side (the stu­pid major­ity will be gone no mat­ter what), tar­get­ing a stu­pid major­ity might become your career­’s most influ­en­tial PR strategy.

Read also: The Stupid Majority PR Strategy: How Underdogs Dominate

ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 Red Bull. (2023, April 6). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Bull
2 Van den Steen, Eric, and Carin-Isabel Knoop. “Red Bull (A).” Harvard Business School Case 714 – 401, March 2014. (Revised March 2018.)
3 How Red Bull Creates Brand Buzz. (2012, December 21). Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2012/12/how-red-bull-creates-brand-buzz
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at KIX Index and Spin Factory. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

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