Grace Sohoel-Goldberg

February 6th, 2018

Red Bull & Convergence

Loosely, convergence is the junction of Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising.

These three fields are no longer viewed as separate and distinct but as interdependent. Red
Bull has mastered the art of Information Design Convergence. Their content marketing strategy
is focused on inbound marketing that uses tactics to attract customers with useful, entertaining
or valuable information. Red Bull films and publishes a variety of entertaining videos on
YouTube. Some of these include MotoCross athletes doing insane tricks, thrill seekers breaking
freefall records or surfers tackling giant waves. All of the athletes featured in these videos all
have a brand recognition with Red Bull, whether their parachute says Red Bull, their surfboard
has the Red Bull logo on it or their helmet has a Red Bull sponsor marked on it.
Some refer to Red Bull’s type of marketing as “freewheeling” rather than, “inbound.” By
this, they mean that Red Bull’s brand culture focuses on many different tactics to attract
customers of many different backgrounds. To quote Forbes, “Even in the freewheeling culture,
Red Bull has maintained consistency in its marketing and communications strategy. In
Mateschitz’s words, Red Bull has been “speaking in the same tone of voice” since its launch in
1987.” So although Red Bull’s PR strategies are not uniform in each of its subdivisions, they all
use some formula of content marketing to entertain an audience. Content marketing is
considered a “convergent” technique in the PR domain. The use of media to create brand
image and culture uses rhetorical techniques found in PR, media development found in
marketing and creation of revenue from advertising.