The Client's Challenge

The pioneer of the energy-drink industry, Red Bull is the global market leader and is well known for its innovative marketing activities spanning sport, music and event sponsorship.

Red Bull wanted to create new consumer-activation creatives for venues across the country. Consumer activations are branded motion graphics and video content used at festivals, bars and clubs to encourage in-venue sales and increase brand awareness.

Our Approach

Red Bull has detailed brand guidelines to ensure that the brand’s image is carefully maintained. Whilst brand rules are necessary for brand consistency across all touchpoints, they can create boundaries to creativity. Therefore, before we embarked on concept development, we needed to become familiar with Red Bull’s brand guidelines to avoid pursuing an idea that contradicted brand guidelines.

To deliver a creative that met the objective of the consumer activation, we looked at psychological principles on how to visually trigger a thirst response in the viewer. We focused on condensation as a thirst stimulator while using colour and shape to align with in-venue experiences, such as music and club culture.

For flexibility, we 3D-modelled the Red Bull can, which allowed us to change its angle or position throughout the various creatives. We followed the brand guidelines, which stated that the can should not be manipulated in any way and is never shown being poured. Because of the limitations regarding the use of the can, we decided to make it the hero of the animation, creating a club scene around the can, mirroring the viewer's in-venue experience.

According to the brand guidelines, the can must be served chilled, so we ensured that our photo-realistic model was covered in condensation as a visual trigger to encourage thirst in the audience. Additionally, the retail data needed to be editable so the Red Bull sales team could adapt them per venue. We provided the final files in an editable format for this purpose.

We also devised a complementary in-venue marketing campaign. Red Bull's initial launch strategy was based around guerrilla marketing tactics. With this complementary campaign, we wanted to nod to that while incorporating a secondary brand touchpoint of printed marketing materials featuring augmented reality (AR) content to amplify brand interest.

The Outcome

The behind-bar animations carefully incorporated subconscious, visual triggers to increase brand appeal, consumer engagement and purchase percentages. Additionally, the AR in-venue marketing campaign renewed Red Bull's reputation as a brand at the vanguard of audience engagement.

The campaign was launched in the lead up to Red Bull's 'Revolutions in Sound' event at the London Eye, featuring heavily in venues throughout that summer to maximise Red Bull's general brand-awareness activity at the time.