How Red Bull Quietly Changed its Video Marketing Strategy

In my previous article, I stated that having an accurate forecast of where the digital video marketing business is headed in 2020 would help you create a successful video marketing strategy, among other things. That brand is Red Bull. So, one might mistakenly think that Red Bull’s current video marketing strategy is built around creating similar hero content or tent-pole events on YouTube. In other words, Red Bull’s successful video marketing strategy appears to be built on creating hub content month in and month out that gets a ton of views. Yes, some months dip to as few as 131 million views and other months jump to as much as 310 million views. But, Red Bull has generated more than 2.5 billion (with a “b”) views – and 50.2 million engagements – in the last 365 days. Red Bull has moved from making occasional “hits” to producing an ongoing stream of videos that get lots of views – and engagements – day in and day out. Uploaded on July 16, 2016, this Facebook video currently has 73.0 million views and 1.3 million engagements. But, video marketers should step back and examine Red Bull’s dramatically different, but even more successful video marketing strategy. In the last 365 days, the energy drink brand has created a total of 639 videos that each has more than 1 million views.

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In my previous article, I stated that having an accurate forecast of where the digital video marketing business is headed in 2020 would help you create a successful video marketing strategy, among other things. I probably should have said “could” or “should” instead of “would,” because brands that already have a successful video marketing strategy are generally tempted to stick with what’s working. You know what they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But, one brand has dramatically changed its video marketing strategy despite the fact that the rest of the industry generally considers it to have been wildly successful over the past eight years. Now, that’s doubly surprising. First of all because, who stops doing what everyone else says is the right thing to do? And secondly, why has it taken so long for most video marketers to realize that this brand isn’t doing what it was once famous for doing anymore? That brand is Red Bull.

Red Bull: Hero Video Marketers

In the old days, Red Bull was known for its monster hits, like “Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall from 128k” The Red Bull Stratos space diving project, which took place on Oct. 14, 2012, was viewed live by over 9.5 million users, setting a record for the live stream with the most concurrent views ever on YouTube.

At time of writing, the YouTube video has 41.2 million views, and 240,000 engagements, according to Tubular Labs. So, one might mistakenly think that Red Bull’s current video marketing strategy is built around creating similar hero content or tent-pole events on YouTube. But, if you take a close look at the Tubular’s monthly rankings of the most watched brands across platforms, then you’ll see that Red Bull has ranked #1 in nine of the past 12 months. And in the other three months, February, March, and April 2016, when LEGO ranked #1, Red Bull ranked #2.

In other words, Red Bull’s successful video marketing strategy appears to be built on creating hub content month in and month out that gets a ton of views. Yes, some months dip to as few as 131 million views and other months jump to as much as 310 million views. But, Red Bull has generated more than 2.5 billion (with a “b”) views – and 50.2 million engagements – in the last 365 days. That’s the equivalent of making more than 60 space jumps a year – without a parachute!

That’s what I mean about dramatically changing what everyone thought a successful video marketing strategy looked like. Red Bull has moved from making occasional “hits” to producing an ongoing stream of videos that get lots of views – and engagements – day in and day out.

According to Tubular Labs, Red Bull has uploaded 4,331 videos to 23 accounts in the last 365 days. On average, these videos get 524,000 views in their first 30 days. And their overall engagement rate is 2.0%, which is 1.3 times above average for other video content that Tubular Video Ratings has benchmarked. Now, there are still…

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