Red Bull Brand Dissemination

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How does the Red Bull brand engage with its fans through extreme sport video content on social media and on the Red Bull TV website?

A cross-platform study of the most-engaging videos

Master in New Media and Digital culture Faculty of Humanities Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)

Master Thesis - Arnaud Muller

June 2017

Supervisor: mw. dr. Anne Helmond Second reader: dhr. dr. Niels van Doorn

Abstract

This research combines the study of the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages, the Red Bull YouTube channel and the digital video service website Red Bull TV to analyse how video content is used by the brand in order to engage with its fans online. The videos that raised the highest engagement number on social media have been taken as case studies in order to understand not only how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans, but also what type of content its fans interact with. By means of a content analysis concerning the potential emotional charge, segmentation, electronic word of mouth and brand networks surrounding the videos displayed by the brand, a study has been made of how fans and brands interact on social media. On the website, the concepts of interface and affordances provide further insight into the possible interactions between fans and brands online. The use of a digital method approach enabled the structure of information and helped to analyse how Red Bull manages its brand identity through fan participation in extreme sport video content, on social media and on the Red Bull website.

Keywords: Affordances, engagement, Red Bull, Red Bull TV, fans, participatory culture, brand identity, brand image, brand social identity, co-production, branded entertainment, emotional charge, electronic word of mouth, brand networks, used-value lifestyle, segmentation, niche sport.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 2

I. Introduction ...... 4

II. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework ...... 8

III. Description of the Method ...... 17 Red Bull’s brand sphere online ...... 17 Creation of the visualization ...... 18 Data in the visualization ...... 18 Object of study ...... 19 Fifty most-engaging videos on social media ...... 19 YouTube fifty most-engaging videos ...... 20 Facebook fifty most-engaging videos ...... 21 Website Affordances ...... 22 Part I: Interface Analysis of the Red Bull TV website ...... 23 Part II: Social Media Analysis ...... 24 Emotional charge ...... 24 Segmentation ...... 24 Electronic WOM ...... 25 Brand Network ...... 25 Facebook ‘like’ network...... 26 YouTube linked channels and videos ...... 26 Cross-platform comparison ...... 27

IV. Findings and Discussion ...... 29 Part I: Interface Analysis of the Red Bull TV website ...... 30 The Wayback machine ...... 31 Website affordances ...... 34 Part II: Social Media Analysis ...... 36 Emotional charge ...... 36 Segmentation ...... 39 Electronic Word of Mouth ...... 41 Brand Networks ...... 43 Cross-platform analysis ...... 48

V. Further research ...... 52

VI. Conclusion ...... 53

Bibliography ...... 56

Appendix ...... 62

I. Introduction

On the 14 October 2012, the Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner broke a world record by jumping out of a balloon from the stratosphere reaching the speed of sound in his free fall back to Earth1. But another record was broken that day: the live stream on the YouTube social media platform reached “eight million concurrent views (…), marking the highest-ever concurrent viewing figure on the Google-owned site.”2 In partnership with the Red Bull energy drink, this project entitled “Red Bull Stratos” cost the company around 50 million euro, according to estimations provided by the German Newspaper Handelsblatt.3

This investment in the “Red Bull Stratos” project exemplifies the peculiar marketing strategy the brand is using as well as the global culture it has built around the single product company in order to engage with consumers. Moreover, the live YouTube broadcast of Baumgartner’s jump illustrates how video content can be effectively used by brands to reach or engage with online customers. As reported by Joon Ian Wong, one of the main reasons for the increasing use of video content online by brands in the past two decades is the Content Delivery Network (CDN) evolution. This technological change has allowed video content to be updated online and viewed without interruptions “by reducing the distance it has to travel to a viewer”, becoming “buffer-free” experiences (Wong, Ian Joon). This innovation has made the online video experience much more engaging and enjoyable for users and for this reason it is increasingly used by companies to share consumer-interactive videos to convey a brand message. Additionally, since the early 2000s, as stated by Pletikosa and Michahelles, “the rise and continued growth of Social Networks have attracted the interest of companies who see the potential to transmit their marketing messages to the customers” (843). In this digital context, this study will focus on how the Red Bull brand engages with consumers through online video entertainment.

Back in 1976, when the Thai energy drink called Krating Daeng - meaning ‘Red Bull’ in Thai - was created by Chaleo Yoovidhya, the CEO of TC Pharmaceutical, he detected that “the energy products are quite interesting and has a growth potential in Thailand market.”4 A couple of years later, on April 1987, with the help of Dietrich Mateschitz, the Red Bull

1 http://www.redbullstratos.com/the-mission/world-record-jump/ 2 http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/red-bull-stratos-skydive-smashes-youtube- records/1154746#GqDSmS62ewU8uEH1.99 3 http://www.handelsblatt.com/panorama/aus-aller-welt/ted-bull-stratos-teddybaer-schlaegt-felix- baumgartner/8704042.html 4 http://export.redbullthailand.com/index.php/corporate/data

energetic drink entered the market in Austria.5 Only two years after Red Bull’s introduction into the market, the Formula 1 Driver Gerhard Berger became the very “first Red Bull sponsored athlete.”6 Today the brand sponsors 666 athletes across 67 countries and sold more than 6 billion cans in 2016 (Appendix, figures 1 and 2). Moreover, in the 1980s, the decade when Red Bull was created, brand advertising was conceptualised, in the opinion of Celia Lury, as a creative field that “aimed to construct for consumers an imaginary lifestyle within which the emotional and aesthetic values of the product were elaborated” (20). Taking this statement on board, Red Bull has since its inception managed to surround the single beverage with a lifestyle and a mind-set of pushing the limits of sport performances by giving its consumer “wings”.

The company’s marketing has become expansive and diversified not only by sponsoring celebrated athletes, but also by supporting major team sports. Red Bull even owns soccer, hockey and auto racing teams, and has become renowned for organizing events and competitions around the world. In May 2017, the Red Bull official website7 included 28 countries where more than 184 upcoming events were about to take place (Appendix, figure 3). Those events, “which involve young, extreme and ‘high speed’ sport disciplines such as free climbing, snowboard, kite surf, acrobatic flight, as well as an international tour of football freestyle” associated with the energetic drink product, “strengthens the energy drink’s image” according to Zagnoli and Radicchi (11-12). Moreover, the general video editing and aesthetic techniques used by the brand emphasize the extreme lifestyle surrounding the drink. Hence, the purpose of this study is to proceed to an analysis of the video content Red Bull displays online and the interactions of its users.

Following this introduction, the next chapter will give an overview of the existing literature regarding brand management by discussing mainly the notions of fans and brands interactions. Contextualising branded entertainment and its close relationship with video advertising is necessary because it represents not only an important part of brand management but also reveals a better understanding of the content displayed by Red Bull. Defining the terms fans and brands is the second crucial step in order to understand their relationship. Through the notion of participatory culture expressed by Henry Jenkins and the growing importance of consumer participation online, fans are seen as active consumers participating in the construction of a brand. Considering brands as immaterial objects will allow me to look at the co-creation of Red Bull’s social identity in close relationship with fan’s conception of the brand image. Finally, the literature on sport related content and especially

5 http://energydrink.redbull.com/red-bull-history 6 Ibidem 7 https://www.redbull.com/en 5

niche sports will help me to understand how a type of content can reach a more homogenous and easily targeted audience potentially eager to engage more with the content as explained by Miloch and Lambrecht (147). User-generated content and engagement will thus illustrate how the brand uses the participation and co-production of the users to interact through a specific brand identity.

This research discerns itself in two ways. Firstly, although various studies have investigated the Red Bull “phenomenon” and its marketing strategy “in the digital environment”, Kunz, Elsässer and Santomier or Sanchis-Roca’s articles for example, less attention has been paid to the video content displayed by the brand in terms of niche sports and consumers possible affordances or engagement with it. Secondly, very little research has been done on Red Bull’s social media using digital methods such as Netvizz, The YouTube Data Tool and Gephi.8 This digital method approach intends to exemplify and fill the gap between the prior literature on fans and brands interactions and the video content available on Red Bull’s online platforms. Also, the freely accessible online tools used to extract the data makes this research reproducible for future research purposes.

In order to look at how the Red Brand engages with its fans through extreme sport video content, the aim of this research is to analyse how online users can interact on websites or on social media in different ways through using varying digital methods. On the Red Bull TV website, the concept of affordances will be used to understand the possible actions the website affords and encourages the users to do. On social media, I will look mainly at the characteristics of the most popular videos posted by the Red Bull brand.

The Red Bull TV website is better understood in the context of Red Bull Media House, an umbrella brand of Red Bull. This “multi-platform media company with a focus on sports, culture, and lifestyle”9 creates in their own words “premium content”. The website section of this study thus focuses on an umbrella brand that manages a variety of products such as the Red Bull Content Pool, Red Bull Mobile, Red Bull TV, RedBull.com, The Red Bulletin, Red Bull Records, Servus TV and many others. Studying an umbrella brand of a limited liability company is challenging due to a lack of information online. Nevertheless, looking at the website’s changing interface over time through the Wayback Machine tool10 as well as the features allowing users to engage with content enables to encapsulate fans and brands interactions.

8 https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/ToolDatabase 9 https://www.redbullmediahouse.com/company/about.html 10 http://wayback.archive.org./ 6

Within social media, it is essential to identify if emotionally charged or targeted videos displayed on the Red Bull platforms in the shape of various niche sports and event-related videos have an impact on fans’ engagement. The engagement will be “measured by number of likes, comments and shares” on social media platforms according to Pletikosa and Michahelles (843). Taking on board the brand networks, meaning how Red Bull positions itself on the Facebook and YouTube platforms as well as the concept of electronic word of mouth will reveal the lifestyle surrounding the brand and consumer’s co-production in the brand identity. After preliminary research that resulted in an overview of the brand’s sphere, detailed in the ‘Description of the methods’ section, I decided to focus on the video content displayed on the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook brand pages, as well as the official Red Bull YouTube channel.

II. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

It is of prime importance to grasp some major concepts within the literature relating to brand management and online video content in order to better understand how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans through video content online. The literature used in this research will therefore not only cover the use and context of video content displayed by brands online, but will also focus on the concepts of “fans” and “brands” and see how they have been defined in prior literature. Through these concepts, it will be possible to understand how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans online. Finally, looking at concepts related to the type of content that Red Bull displays online will help to analyse the impact of a particular type of video content on fans and brands interactions on social media, as well as the Red Bull TV website.

To have a better understanding of the relatively recent history of video entertainment generated and put online by brands, it is necessary to contextualise the early relationship between video content produced by brands in general and its reception by its viewers. At the end of the twentieth century, through television, users already had a particular perception of video content displayed by brands. Due to technological inventions such as the digital video recorder (DVR), video on demand (VOD) and later, Internet protocol television (IPTV), users were accustomed to having a selection of content. Allowing viewers to have a “30- second skip-ahead button” at the very end of the twentieth century caused a change in people’s way of watching video advertising. It was now considered as highly “disruptive to TV programming” by the general viewers, as stated by Dave Evans (10). Consequently, this technological change transformed the relationship between advertising video content and viewers, as the latter were now able to “skip” or “fast forward” the ads.

On top of this, one of the major shifts for advertising video content, in the opinion of Richter, Riemer and vom Brocke, was the advent of online social networks in the early 2000s. It provided a new opportunity for brands to reach viewers by “facilitating targeted approaches and viral marketing” (98). This meant that social networks allowed brands to engage with particular categories of consumers who had mostly lost confidence in advertising videos and had started to “distrust advertising messages” (Clemons, Barnett and Appadurai 269). Through social networks, it was possible for brands to reach consumers on a platform where they could benefit from consumers’ trust in each other. As reported by Clemons, Barnett and Appadurai, “social networks are trusted because of shared experiences and the perception of shared values or shared needs” (268). Relying on recommendations of friends, family members or acquaintances, social networks allowed brands to insert themselves into a more personal environment where connecting people was the very essence of those platforms. In

the words of Pletikosa and Michahelles, “Social networks, as part of Web 2.0 technology, provide the technological platform for the individuals to connect, produce and share content online” (843). In addition to this, social media platforms such as Facebook gave the opportunity to create brand pages which allowed brands to be part of these connections. Brands could hence improve and expand their interaction with customers by inserting advertising video content into this new context.

On social media platforms, which have essentially connecting and recreational purposes, “the entertainment value (…) is also an important factor for using it”, according to De Vries, Gensler, and Leeflang (85). Content that is entertaining, meaning content that amuses and also interests, is a key element in consumers’ use of and participation in social media platforms, as explained by Gensler et al.: “entertainment is an important motive for consumers to contribute and create content” (248). Within that context and in the opinion of Samuel and David Hudson, “the entertainment industry has proliferated, and entertainment is now distributed and consumed through a variety of media” (491). Because of the co- evolution and adaptation of video entertainment and consumers’ participation, the possibilities for displaying video content through social networks have become plentiful.

Moreover, and as stated by Irena Pletikosa, “entertainment and information were found to be among the main motivations for online engagement over brand-related content in the form of consumption, creation, and contribution” (846). The Hudsons state that “these changes have opened the door to integrated advertising” within the video entertainment industries (491). Integrated advertising is thus the combination of advertising and entertainment videos, and it introduces specific kinds of advertising methods, such as product placement, within entertaining videos. This means that the product that the company is selling, such as a drink, appears on one or multiple occasions in the video. This phenomenon of merging advertising with entertainment, according to the Hudsons, “has been labelled ‘branded entertainment’ by the industry” (491). Also based on the definition of Samuel and David Hudson, branded entertainment can be understood more broadly as the “integration of advertising into entertainment content, whereby brands are embedded into storylines of a film, television program, or other entertainment medium” (492). In the case of Red Bull, this includes sport videos and live broadcasted events. With this understanding of the definition of branded entertainment, a significant part of the sport videos displayed on the Red Bull platforms, with their incorporation of the energy drink product together with the constant use of the Red Bull logo, can be recognized as branded entertainment videos.

An understanding of the concept of branded entertainment is essential for investigating and analysing the interactions between Red Bull and its consumers, because their relationship is developed through a combination of advertising and entertainment. However, before

analysing consumer and brand interaction through branded entertainment, it is also essential to acknowledge the concepts of “brands” and “fans”, and to understand their meanings based on prior definitions.

Red Bull can be considered as a brand because it is selling a product, the Red Bull energy drink, and the name ‘Red Bull’ is therefore essentially related to the product. However, based on Celia Lury’s argument, the concept of brand is more than just selling products, it “is something to which some feeling or action is directed’; it is an object-ive in that it is the object of “a purpose or intention” (1). Because of the purpose of a brand, which is to sell products by constantly adapting and evolving over time, the brand is, for Celia Lury, “a set of relations between products in time” (2).

Within this dynamic, the term brand is difficult to define on its own and is often associated with its purpose, products or image. A brand image is defined by Celia Lury as “the associations that a brand holds for consumers” (9-10) and requires therefore “practices of brand positioning” (67). In agreement with Peter Cheverton “the brand image is of course more than a picture or a logo; it is the range of associations triggered in your mind by that picture or logo” (9). When seeing the Red Bull logo, particular adjectives, types of sports and associations come to one’s mind, building therefore their brand image. This brand image and its associations therefore correspond to a part of the brand’s identity, which is defined by Gensler et al. as “carefully selected attributes, benefits, and attitudes that are communicated to consumers” by the brand, and that are supposed to be recognized by the consumer (243). This means that the brand’s identity is a vision which the brand communicates to its consumers, but which the consumers can relate to and contribute to according to their own vision of the brand image. In this context, the brand’s social identity can be understood as the integration of the consumers’ contribution - on social media for example - to the brand’s action, because the consumers are “knowingly or unknowingly absorbed into the brand's identity” (Gensler et al. 250). This contribution is made by more or less active consumers participating with different levels of involvement in the brand’s social identity. Looking at the concept of fan is therefore also essential to explain the participation of the consumers and how they contribute to this co-production of the brand’s social identity online.

Going back to the 19th century the word fan was first used - in this meaning - “in journalistic accounts describing followers of professional sports teams (especially in baseball) at a time when the sport moved from a predominantly participant activity to a spectator event”, according to Henry Jenkins (Textual Poachers 12). It is important to note that the term fan was first employed within a sport milieu, as this use is essential in order to grasp the inherent background and context of sports performers and spectators, and of the ensuing production

of content for consumers. To a certain extent, this can be related to the Red Bull brand, which produces and displays sport content online that its consumers interact with.

Introducing the concept of participatory culture in 1992 within the context of television, Jenkins already pinpoints the challenge of fans and brand communication:

[Fan]. A.M. activities pose important questions about the ability of media producers to constrain the creation and circulation of meanings. Fans construct their cultural and social identity through borrowing and inflecting mass culture images, articulating concerns which often go unvoiced within the dominant media (23).

More than twenty years later, Jenkins, Sam Ford and Joshua Green mention that the production of social identity and the invention of the participatory culture concept was made “to describe the cultural production and social interactions of fan communities, initially seeking a way to differentiate the activities of fans from other forms of spectatorship” (2). This differentiation is crucial online, and especially in the social media environment, because fans “are making their presence felt by actively shaping media flows” (Jenkins, Ford and Green 2). Followers, subscribers, members, likes, shares, comments: the online users definitely constitute social networks.

For Facebook, for example, the platform could not exist without its “1.28 billion daily active users on average for March 2017.”11 However on Facebook, not all users can be described as fans. Only a user that actively ‘likes’ a specific page becomes a fan of the owner of the page. Going back to the definition of fans which evolved from the core concept of interaction between sports teams and spectators, someone on social media who clicks ‘like’ on the Red Bull page or interacts with the content displayed by the brand can be considered as a Red Bull fan.

Jenkins, Ford and Green through participatory culture consider that the public is no longer composed of people absorbing “preconstructed messages but as people who are shaping, sharing, reframing, and remixing media content in ways which might not have been previously imagined” (2). Thereby fans can be defined as active consumers participating in the co-construction of a brand.

Taking on board the concept of participatory culture, brand managers are no longer single authors of brand production, especially in the social media era, as stated by Adam

11 https://newsroom.fb.com/company-info/ 11

Arvidsson, Celia Lury, Peter Cheverton and Sonja Gensler et al. With the advent of social networks, consumers are now able to share previous experiences and visions of the brand, which other consumers trust and relate to. These digital voices have gained such importance through social media that, according to Sonja Gensler et al., “brand managers can no longer afford to ignore” the part consumers play in the public image of a brand (243). This public image of the brand reflects the concept of the brand’s social identity, which is co-produced by both the consumers and the brand itself, and highlights how much brands are co- constructed online.

This co-construction is visible in particular through the content generated by consumers online. This practice is usually referred to as user-generated content (UGC) by scholars and the industry. According to Kaplan and Haenlein, user-generated content “can be seen as the sum of all ways in which people make use of Social Media” (61) and can be “individually or collaboratively produced, modified, shared and consumed” (Smith, Fischer and Yongjian 103). Taking on board this broad definition, the comments, shares and likes of the fans can be understood as user-generated content on the Red Bull brand pages online. As stated by Smith, Fischer and Yongjian, user-generated content “is related to, but not identical with, electronic word-of-mouth” (103). Electronic word of mouth is slightly different from traditional word of mouth (WOM), as it adds the fact that the user’s opinion or statement is publicly available online. According to Godes et al. traditional WOM can be defined “as the one-to- one and face-to-face exchange of information about a product or service” (416). Moreover, WOM gets an even more complex signification in a marketing environment where it is expressed as “the quality that information about one customer’s experiences are possibly influential in another’s decision” (2). This means that consumers have a strong impact on each other when sharing experiences, as mentioned above by Richter, Riemer and vom Brocke, through the concept of viral marketing. According to Clemons, Barnett and Appadurai, “network members tend to trust and rely on each other, and to provide information that other members find useful and reliable” (268). As stated by Pletikosa and Michahelles, social media marketing is therefore adopted by brands in order to use “existing social media platforms for increasing the brand awareness among consumers on online platforms through utilization of the WOM principles” (845). User-generated content as well as electronic word of mouth play an active part in the construction of a brand’s social identity by raising general awareness between consumers online. Interaction between consumers on social networks can carry the brand’s identity towards new individuals and potential new consumers.

Awareness leads, moreover, not only to single participation but generally to networks of consumers in the opinion of Adam Arvidsson. Because of the interconnection between participants on social media, “brands are inserted into networks of interaction and

communication (…) adding dimensions of used-value to the brand” (69). The notion of used- value is essential here in the case of Red Bull. Because brands do not only represent products, as mentioned by Lury above, but are also part of an image and an identity constructed by many protagonists, a brand can provide consumers with used-value according to Arvidsson. This means that “with a particular brand I can act, feel and be in a particular way” (8). Therefore, by drinking Red Bull, for example, I become something more, constructing as well as feeling part of the social identity of the brand. The effects of used- value “mediate and cement the social relations that make up the context of consumption”, in the opinion of Arvidsson (18-19). For this particular reason, “brands thus rely on the productivity of consumers not only for the realization, but for the actual co-production of the values that they promise” (35). The phenomenon of used-value tends to increase consumers’ production of content within what Arvidsson calls networks of interactions. This, according to Pletikosa and Michahelles, generates “many-to-many communication on social media platforms”, increasing exponentially electronic word of mouth (844).

In this context, if brands are regarded as a “medium of exchange” or even a “vehicle of globalization” between consumers, in the terms of Celia Lury, this explains how brands have become an essentially consumer-participative medium more than a company stamp or means of protection. Even though the term brand was created in the nineteenth century to identify, relate and protect a company, “as marks of authenticity in a new world of mass production”, the meaning of brand has

become “a product with a wraparound of emotions and personality” as explained by Peter

Cheverton (4). Through their essence, brands became objects of interpretation put into the hands of the consumers. If consumers can “create their own meanings” and are co- constructing the brand, then the brand can also be seen as “blocks” according to Arvidsson (68).

To be more specific, brands are defined as “immaterial, informational objects” (13) in the opinion of Adam Arvidsson, and they can work, in the terms of Celia Lury, as an “abstract machine for the reconfiguration of production” (22). Brands can accordingly be defined as more than simple “blocks”, and rather as an adaptive machine of production “learning how to match the circumstances of time” and desires of consumers (Cheverton 3). To be adaptive and match the society in which they evolve, brands have to be more than a trendy reference in consumers’ minds. This new conception of a brand can “encompass entire lifestyles”, demonstrating to consumers how to ‘live the life’ by using their “emotional charge”, referring to Cheverton (6). This emotional charge, which reaches beyond the conscious desires of consumers, is included in the concept of brand image mentioned above. Brand image can be interpreted as “the range of associations” made in the targets’ minds when a third party evokes the name of the brand (9).

For this reason, even if the brand’s social identity is partly written by consumers online, it requires some core elements from the part of the brand in order to share a common brand image with the consumers. The lifestyle surrounding the brand’s image in the terms of Cheverton’s book works as “layers” around the brand product. Moreover, this lifestyle is a carrier of used-value and allows a shared conception of the brand’s image between brands and consumers (6). To communicate this lifestyle, brands attempt to raise awareness online through “a strategy of self-referencing”, as explained by Celia Lury (63). This strategy means that, as maintained by Lury, “when most people are asked for examples of brands they are able to give a list of example” because they are aware of the brands’ existence (66). The aim of this strategy of awareness is for the brand to come at the top of this mental list for the majority of people.

In order to do that, and following Cheverton’s argument, brands have to reach an emotional charge in the consumers’ minds by combining “brand activity” and “customer interaction.” This means that the brand actions - in a very broad sense - and the customers’ conception of the brand have to be “pulled together” (16). This requires for brands to have a strong brand identity but also flexibility. The ability to adapt, grow and change by allowing customers to interact and take part in the brand’s social identity online is essential for the co-construction of the brand, pulling together the brand and its consumers. Only once brands have reached an emotional charge in the consumers’ minds and are ready to adapt around a solid brand identity, can they then be referred to and furthered on social media platforms. In short, fans can become facilitators of a brand and take part in the social identity of a brand once they share a common brand image.

The emotional charge inserted into the brand’s identity can be seen through the content the brand displays on its various online platforms. Therefore, to engage with consumers, trigger their attention and raise awareness, the content is an essential element to take on board. The aim of looking at the video content is to grasp the impact of extreme sport video content that Red Bull displays online on fans and brand interactions.

Looking at the concept of branded entertainment mentioned above, Kunz, Elsässer and Santomier claim that “sport related branded entertainment can be described as sport content that is co-created by sponsors, sport and media entities, while embedding brands subtlety” (2). In the case of Red Bull’s videos displayed online, the videos are directly produced by the marketing team for the brand, allowing them to insert into almost every video the energy drink product and the brand’s identity or lifestyle as mentioned above. Using essentially sport content across its online platforms, Red Bull’s videos can therefore be considered as sport related branded entertainment. With regard to this definition, Kunz Elsässer and Santomier

explain that the purpose of sport related branded entertainment “is to entertain sport fans and other audiences that voluntarily consume and share the content (…)” (2).

The audience, according by Gantz, W. et al. can be defined as sport fans and can be seen as “those with a particular interest in performers, personalities, and programs, as well as athletes and sports teams” (96). More specifically, by using the term fanship, Gantz et al. explain that “fanship points to an active and interested audience” (96). Considering this statement along with Jenkins’ definition of participatory culture mentioned above highlights how sport fans or fanship, according to Gantz et al., “represents an array of thought processes, affective attachments, and behaviors that separate fans from nonfans” (96). Fans, therefore, show a different level of participation and engagement in sport related branded entertainment.

Moreover, and conforming with Sanchis-Roca’s article, the type of sports posted by the various platforms owned by the Red Bull brand offer “very well selected, quality and free contents where the risk factor, spectacularity and overcoming of limits predominate in an essential manner” (394). Indeed, Red Bull mainly displays sport videos characterized by their extreme sport performances where the aesthetics, the camera views and editing attributes are of prime importance in order to engage with its fans. Sanchis-Roca’s text pinpoints the importance of empowering and entertaining the user through “aesthetical (spectacular and quality images with a clear technological potential)” (395). As a result, extreme sport content is obviously the main part of Red Bull’s social media strategy, adding value to the brand.

Another main characteristic of Red Bull’s online branded entertainment videos is the brand’s use of sport-event related videos. On this subject, the text of Zagnoli and Redicchi provides an interesting approach by analysing and categorizing the dual use of real and virtual events by some companies, “enriching the participation both of practitioners and spectators with multimedia and interactive dimensions” (5). This factor emphasizes the importance of interaction between brands and consumers in relation to events within the online environment. Moreover, this research is very applicable to the Red Bull brand, being “a first attempt to classify experiential sport events staged by industrial companies”, in the words of Zagnoli and Redicchi (27). “Experiential sport events” are here understood as an entertainment experience allowing the company to carry out an “experimentation of industrial products (e.g. clothes, equipment, beverage, pc, etc.)” online (1). This experimental marketing, using different types of sports and events, raises brand awareness and strengthens not only the image of the energy drink, but also reinforces the brand lifestyle in general. The practice used by Red Bull, displaying niche sports within particular events, is thus the core of the brand’s experimental marketing strategy.

According to the articles of Greenhaigh, Greenwell, as well as the one of Miloch and Lambrecht, a niche sport receives limited, if any, attention from the “mainstream” social media, and can therefore be classified as a sport that is not mainstream. According to Rosner and Shropshire’s classification of niche sports, a niche sport is an “emerging sport representing the top level of competition in their sport but not receiving the same level of media coverage or spectatorship as mainstream sports enjoy” (44).

More importantly, their participants and supporters represent a more “homogenous” demographic “sub-segment of sport consumers” than mainstream sports, which allows the brand to reach more accurately-targeted potential consumers, as explained by Miloch and Lambrecht (147). This particular factor is interesting for brand managers, but also for advertisers and sponsors in general, as it allows them to make a selection of interested people, which is indeed an essential element in the era of targeted and personalized advertising.

In the case of Red Bull, a niche sport can also be considered as a sport that combines various practices - such as ice skating and ski-cross for the Red Bull Crashed Ice, for example - and acquires therefore a distinct segment of viewers and participants. Very importantly, creating its own content allows Red Bull to deliver live webcasts of their series of events, and own media rights to them. This means that they can display all over the world without restrictions.

To conclude, the body of this literature review includes the studies relating to the concepts of product placement, branded entertainment, fans, participatory culture, brands, brand image, brand social identity, user-generated content, word of mouth, used-value, experimental marketing and niche sports. This integrative review provides therefore some core concepts necessary for the analysis of how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans through extreme sport video content on social media and on the Red Bull TV website.

In addition, awareness of the co-creation of content by both fans and brands online, through those concepts, is necessary to explain and reveal the affordances that the Red Bull social media platforms and Red Bull TV website allow to users. In this context, “an array of online communication tools have arisen to facilitate informal and instantaneous” communication between fans and brands online (Jenkins, Ford and Green 2). In order to examine the Facebook and YouTube social media platforms, as well as the Red Bull TV website, digital tools will be used as mentioned above. This process is explained in detail in the following chapter.

III. Description of the Method

Red Bull’s brand sphere online In this section, I will use quantitative and qualitative methods in order to analyse how the Red Bull brand engages with online users through extreme video content on the Red Bull TV website and on social media. Therefore, a cross-platform analysis of the engagement and affordances between brands and users through the use of digital tools looking solely at video content will be undertaken here.

To understand how the Austrian energy drink company is positioned online, I have created a visual overview of the Red Bull brand sphere (see fig. 1). To create a more intelligible overview of the brand sphere, I have placed websites on the left side and social media on the right. This separation will be explained and justified in ‘Findings and discussion’.

Figure 1: Red Bull brand sphere overview: https://mm.tt/883017130?t=5DZrFFiMlW

Creation of the visualization The overview above (see fig. 1) was made with the help of the Mindmeister12 website developed by the MeisterLabs company. To define the subdivisions and acquire the information about the Red Bull brand sphere given in this overview, I used the Red Bull Media House website, especially the “Products” section13, Google searches as well as the search engine within Facebook, YouTube and Instagram platforms. In addition, I used digital method tools, in particular Netvizz14 and the YouTube Data Tool15 (YTDT) to extract the number of subscribers from the Red Bull Facebook pages and YouTube channel. The tools and methods I used to collect the data will be explained under the subheading: ‘Fifty most- engaging videos on social media’.

This visualization (see fig. 1) provides merely an overview of Red Bull’s brand sphere online, and was made to identify the major online platforms of the Red Bull brand displaying essentially video content. However, it is not comprehensive for two main reasons. Firstly, because of the ongoing expansion of the Red Bull brand online, and secondly, because of the extent and complexity of Red Bull’s sponsoring activities and collaboration with other brands.

Data in the visualization In the Red Bull brand sphere overview (see fig. 1), I have provided a general engagement percentage of the Red Bull YouTube channel as well as the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages. This was accomplished by reducing the data to fifty most-engaging videos. This selection will also be explained in detail under the subheading: ‘Fifty most-engaging videos on social media’.

To obtain the engagement percentage (in bright red), the process for both YouTube and Facebook was nearly identical. The engagement percentage of the Red Bull YouTube channel was found by adding the “likeCount”, “dislikeCount” and “commentCount” for each video. Following that, I compared the calculated engagement to the view count to get an engagement percentage on each video (Appendix, figure 5). Finally, I added up the figures to create the general engagement percentage included in the YouTube Red Bull channel in the brand sphere (see fig. 1).

12 https://www.mindmeister.com 13 https://www.redbullmediahouse.com/products-brands/online.html 14 https://apps.facebook.com/netvizz/?ref=br_rs 15 http://labs.polsys.net/tools/youtube/index.php 18

Concerning the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook percentages, I clicked consecutively on each link in the fifty most-engaging videos to get the number of views for each video directly on Facebook (Appendix, figures 6 and 7). As the engagement was already provided for each video - the sum of reactions, shares and comments - a percentage could be harvested for each video comparing the number of views to the engagement. The last step was to add up all the results to get an average percentage of the two pages, as with the YouTube channel (Appendix, figures 5, 6 and 7).

Object of study Within this brand sphere, the data was mainly collected on those particular pages of the Red Bull brand concerning social media, in order to focus mainly on video content. The focus will therefore be on the Red Bull16 and Red Bull TV17 Facebook pages. To be consistent with this selection, the Red Bull TV website will also be studied. In regards to YouTube, only the official channel18 will be studied because the Red Bull TV YouTube channel does not exist.

On social media, I decided to focus primarily on Facebook and YouTube, not only because they are the two most visited social media platforms on the Internet, according to the Alexa software19, but also because they constitute the two leading social networks that drive internet traffic to the Red Bull TV website, according to the analytics of SimilarWeb.com (Appendix, figure 4). This means that a lot of the people that look at video content posted by Red Bull on Facebook and YouTube end up on the Red Bull TV website. This emphasizes the need to study those platforms in order to better understand fans and brands interactions online. Both Facebook brand pages and the YouTube channel could be studied with the help of the digital method tools available on digitalmethods.net20. Those tools allowed me to collect data about these social media platforms in order to analyse fans’ engagement towards Red Bull’s branded entertainment videos.

Fifty most-engaging videos on social media In order to see which videos fans engaged with the most on social media, I selected the fifty videos that had the most engagement on the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages, as well as the Red Bull YouTube channel. This engagement results from the sum of the reactions (including the Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry options), the comments and

16 https://www.facebook.com/redbull/ 17 https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/ 18 https://www.youtube.com/user/redbull 19 http://www.alexa.com/topsites 20 https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/Dmi/DmiAbout

the shares on Facebook. Concerning YouTube, the engagement is made up of a combination of likes, dislikes and comments.

To be able to extract the data from the Facebook pages and YouTube channel, I used digital methods, as previously mentioned. Digital methods “as a research practice, strive to follow the evolving methods of the medium”, “recombining” the “availability and exploitability of digital objects”, according to Richard Rogers (1). In short, taking social media platforms such as Facebook, “digital methods repurpose or build on top of the dominant devices of the medium, and in doing so make derivative works from the results, figuratively and literally” (3). This means that “the initial outputs may be the same as or similar to those from online devices, but they are seen or rendered in new light” in the opinion of Rogers, turning familiar pages into findings (3). Through the “Digital Methods Initiative”, a project launched by Richard Rogers in “2007 as a research program at the University of Amsterdam” and available on digitalmethods.net a range of tools is thus available to analyse online devices and platforms (7). These digital tools will be explained in detail in the following sections.

YouTube fifty most-engaging videos Concerning the YouTube data collection, I focused only on the Red Bull YouTube channel, as mentioned above. To analyse this channel, I used the YouTube data Tool available on digitalmethods.net.21 The outcome of this tool is, according to Bernhard Rieder, “a new set of scripts, called YouTube Data Tools (YTDT)” allowing the researcher to look at channels through different angles and dissect the data with the help of “five modules that focus on different sections of the platform.” 22

The very first step was to extract the channel ID that I had inserted into the “YTDT Channel Info” module, which “retrieves different kinds of information for a channel.” 23 This gave me the creation date as well as the number of subscribers, videos and linked channels listed in the Red Bull brand sphere (see fig. 1).

The second step was to use the “YTDT Video List” modularity to create a list of video and statistics.24 I inserted the Red Bull YouTube channel id within the search query box and used the pre-sets: Iterations 1, rank by relevance, set crawl depth 1 and submitted it. I found 6,373 videos when I collected the data on the 20 April 2017, and their statistics (video id, title, comments, views, etc.) After exporting it in a Microsoft Excel file, I decided to reduce the

21 https://tools.digitalmethods.net/netvizz/youtube/ 22 http://thepoliticsofsystems.net/2015/05/exploring-youtube/ 23 http://labs.polsys.net/tools/youtube/mod_channel_info.php 24 http://labs.polsys.net/tools/youtube/mod_videos_list.php 20

data to fifty videos with the highest number in the category “engagement”, using the “largest to smallest” filter (Appendix, figure 5).

As explained in the previous section, I then had to add up the comments, likes and shares in order to get the “Total engagement” box. In order to analyse only video content, I filtered the type “category” on “video”, to hide the links, pictures and other possible posts included in the initial data.

Facebook fifty most-engaging videos In the case of Facebook, I extracted for the Red Bull page on Facebook25 all the videos between the estimated creation date – first profile picture on the 4 March 2009 - and the 20 April 2017. This data was collected through “a software tool, Netvizz, designed to” perform “data crawling” with the Facebook platform, according to Bernhard Rieder (1). Data crawling, as stated by Wilson, Goslingand Graham, results in “gleaning information about users from their profiles without their active participation” (215). The Netvizz tool allowed me to study users’ interactions with the Facebook platform and especially the Red Bull Facebook pages. Indeed, as explained by Rieder, “the Netvizz application currently extracts data from three different sections of the Facebook platform” - Personal networks, Groups and Pages (4-5). The Pages section was used in this study in order to “identify the posts that produced the highest amount of engagement” (5).

To evaluate the engagement between users and the Red Bull Facebook page, I selected therefore the page data option on the Netvizz tool available on Facebook.26 Subsequently, I inserted the Red Bull Facebook page id with the settings “date scope” between 1 March 2009 and 20 April 2017. In order to acquire a broad collection of data, I refined the settings to “post statistic” only and “post by page only”, which gave me an amount of 1,003 posts. This surprisingly low figure suggested that a lot of posts were missing, especially in the year 2016. There were a small number of posts in January and December but nothing in- between. As I was concerned about a possible error on Netvizz due to the broad date range and the amount of data involved, I decided to run consecutively the last 999 posts, the last 500 posts, as well as the posts by date from 01 January 2016 to 01 January 2017. The data was unfortunately still missing.

The data collected on Facebook for this research has therefore to be considered as an incomplete representation of what the Red Bull brand posts online. Also, there is no way (apart from hours of scrolling down) to know if Red Bull deleted the posts or if the Netvizz

25 https://www.facebook.com/redbull/ 26 https://apps.facebook.com/netvizz/?fb_source=search&ref=br_rs 21

tool could not retrieve the data. Nevertheless, the selection of the fifty most-engaging videos, made the same way as in the YouTube fifty most-engaging videos, minimized the information deficit (Appendix figure 6).

With regard to the Red Bull TV Facebook page27, I collected 1,470 results after applying the exact same settings in Netvizz used for the analysis of the Red Bull Facebook page. I also reduced the data to the fifty most-engaging videos exactly as I did for the Red Bull YouTube channel (Appendix, figure 7).

The only difference between the two data searches was in estimating the creation date of the page. The Red Bull TV Facebook page shows just one recent profile picture. To resolve this issue, I scrolled down in the video section of the page until the 20 July 2015, which was the first video posting on the page. The date scope of the Red Bull TV Facebook page selected in this study is therefore between the 20 July 2015 and 20 April 2017.

Website Affordances After gathering the fifty most-engaging videos for the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages as well as the official YouTube channel, which will constitute the core of the social media sources for this thesis, I also analysed the Red Bull TV website. I decided to select the Red Bull TV website for two main reasons, beside the fact of its simple accordance with social media. Firstly, because the content displayed on Red Bull TV is essentially made up of “extreme” video content, taking the “audiences up close and behind the scenes to reveal the real-life stories of a diverse range of people”28, according to the Red Bull media house’s description of Red Bull TV. Secondly, because of the fact that Red Bull TV has live streams and browsed channel options refined into applications for television, computers, game consoles or smartphones. These two elements provide an interesting interface between brands and consumers, enabling diverse online interactions.

A study of the Red Bull TV website will result in a separation of the findings and discussion chapter into a website section and the social media brand aforementioned pages, entitled therefore ‘Parts 1 and 2’. This separation is necessary because the users’ engagement on the Red Bull TV website cannot be measured and therefore has to be studied in terms of affordances. In other words, what the website affords users to do.

The concept of affordances - first defined by Gibson as “something that refers to both the environment and the animal” (126) - is interesting when considered through Donald

27 https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/ 28 https://www.redbullmediahouse.com/products/tv/red-bull-tv.html 22

Norman’s definition. According to Bucher and Helmond, Norman’s “aim was to explore the relationship between human cognition and the design of devices and everyday things” (5). Certain technological objects can in fact “encourage or constrain specific actions” (6). The online user can thus be mentally stimulated or limited depending on what a website affords him to do. The term of affordances is therefore crucial to understand and analyse websites and users’ interactions.

Part I: Interface Analysis of the Red Bull TV website This first part will therefore consider the Red Bull TV website as a possible space for interaction between fans and brands. I looked at the affordances and the possibilities of interactions between the video content displayed on the platform by the brand and its viewers. This will be made by dividing the Red Bull TV website analysis into two steps.

The first step consists of an analysis of the Red Bull TV website through its interface in order to understand the impact of the interactions between users and the website. Johanna Drucker defines the term interface as the space between “rational organization of content and the need to balance this with an intuitive way of using that content” (10). This arrangement of the content made by the brand can be analysed by comparing the website’s design from its creation date until today, using the Wayback Machine29 tool. According to Rogers, “one can study the evolution of a single page (or multiple pages) over time, for example by collecting snapshots from the dates that a page has been indexed” (66). Therefore, I screen-shot a snapshot a year to get a general overview of the development of the website. In this way, “the evolution” of a specific web page can be studied over time, according to Rogers (66).

This internet archive tool was developed in California in 1996 and allows us to retrieve internet pages and analyse their history.30 According to the website description, “the Internet Archive Wayback Machine supports a number of different APIs to make it easier for developers to retrieve information about Wayback capture data.”31 As with the Netvizz and YouTube Data Tool previously mentioned, the Wayback Machine uses API (application programming interfaces). This means, according to Rieder, that:

“Access through sanctioned APIs makes use of the machine interfaces provided by many Web 2.0 services to third-party developers with the objective of stimulating application

29 http://archive.org/web/ 30 https://archive.org/about/ 31 https://archive.org/help/wayback_api.php 23

development and integration with other services in order to provide additional functionality and utility to users” (347).

The usefulness of API for users can be explained because it “provides well-structured data”, in the opinion of Rieder (347). Accordingly, a historical interface analysis of the Red Bull TV website through the concept of affordances will be undertaken here. Looking at what the website allows users to do in terms of interactions over time, opens the discussion on how fans can interact with the Red Bull content on the website.

Building on this first study, the second step of this section will focus on what the website allows the brand to do in terms of video content. As Red Bull TV is a digital video service platform, this enables the brand to provide different and varied video content on social media platforms to engage with its consumers.

According to Bucher and Helmond, a grasp of the term affordances is crucial for understanding and analysing websites, as well as “social media interfaces and the relations between technology and its users” (3). By looking at Red Bull TV’s website affordances, and also fans’ engagement through video content, I will be able to answer the question: how the Red Bull brand engage with its fans through extreme sport video content on social media and on the Red Bull TV website?

Part II: Social Media Analysis I will therefore analyse in detail the engagement of fans with the Red Bull video content on social media. This section will be based on the data from the fifty most-engaging videos, as mentioned above. It will be divided into five main subheadings in order to deconstruct fans’ engagement with video content displayed by Red Bull, as well as Red Bull’s strategy to engage with its fans.

Emotional charge First of all, to understand how Red Bull produces videos filled with emotional charge, in the words of Cheverton, in order to engage with its fans, I will provide specific examples of the captions provided by the brand in the fifty most-engaging videos posted online. In addition to that, I will look at the content itself and what is displayed, in order to understand the fans’ engagement with specific types of videos displayed by the brand.

Segmentation Moreover, the language, location and time attributes of the videos will help to understand who the videos are intended for. Indeed, as Red Bull organizes niche sports events all over the world and sponsors athletes from around 67 different countries, it is common to see

posts in a language specifically intended for a particular audience (Appendix, figure 2). This will aim to reveal the impact on consumers’ engagement according to that targeted type of content.

With regard to this, the Netvizz “fans per country” file was used to see where the Red Bull and Red Bull TV pages “fans” came from (Appendix, Figure 9). I also used the Netvizz data from the fifty most-engaging videos. The “post statistic only and post by page only” settings allowed me to collect a ‘fans per country’ file. By using the date ranges used in the Facebook fifty most-engaging videos I could put the fans per country of both pages in an Excel file (Appendix, figure 9). Also, I removed the two-letter country abbreviations used by Netvizz and replaced them with the complete country names to make the document easier to read.

For YouTube, the YTDT tool unfortunately did not provide the background of the subscribers. For this reason, I had to exclude the YouTube social media platform from this part of my analysis.

Electronic WOM Thirdly, based on Jenkins participatory culture concept, the importance of user-generated content, and the concept of electronic word of mouth, I will undertake a qualitative analysis of the comments provided in the fifty most-engaging videos through the different social media aforementioned pages. This will reveal the fans’ co-construction of the Red Bull brand’s social identity. Within the comments, it is also necessary to look at the tags by consumers, mentioning each others’ names, and generating awareness and electronic word of mouth.

Brand Networks Fourthly, to complement this approach, it is essential to look at and compare how brands constitute a network on different channels. In short, how they position themselves online. Indeed, investigating the interaction and positioning of a brand towards its fans is necessary to analyse the brand’s networks, and the ‘like’ networks themselves. This will allow us to see if the Red Bull, Red Bull TV Facebook pages, and the YouTube channel have a tendency to follow specific kinds of pages or other channels. This aspect will be further explained in the ‘Findings and discussion’ section using the concept of networks of interactions by Arvidsson, mentioned in the literature review chapter.

For this section, the Gephi32 tool is used to produce network visualizations. Gephi is defined by Bastian, Heymann and Jacomy as “an open source network exploration and manipulation

32 https://gephi.org/ 25

software. Developed modules can import, visualize, spatialize, filter, manipulate and export all types of networks” (1). Using data from Netvizz in the form of gdf files can after that be opened in the Gephi software in order to visualize the networks.

Facebook ‘like’ network. To produce the ‘like’ network of the Red Bull TV Facebook page (see fig. 14), the data was first extracted from Netvizz with the page id using the parameters: “page like network” and “depth1”. Opening the file in the Gephi network analysis software, I first used the layout “ForceAtlas 2” to run the network. The second step was to apply the layout “label adjust” to avoid text overlapping and make the key readable. After that, the tool modularity class was used on the node’s colour to show the interconnections of the different network groups of followers of the Red Bull TV Facebook page. The different colours are broadly illustrating subcategories of highly interconnected pages in terms of fans. The attribute “fan_count” was consequently applied to the size of the nodes and was key to giving a large overview of the number of fans ‘liking’ the various pages and people.

To create the visualization of the Red Bull page ‘like’ network (see fig. 15), I used exactly the same process utilizing Netvizz and Gephi, as well as the same settings as for the Red Bull TV Facebook page graph. I only introduced a red circle in order to identify the Red Bull TV node on the Red Bull page ‘like’ network graph.

YouTube linked channels and videos To look at the network of the Red Bull channel on YouTube, I ran the “YTDT Channel Network” 33 tool using the channel id and the settings “Iterations 1”, “set crawl depth 1.” This gave me 23 featured channels. A featured channel, unlike a recommended channel, is not based on the YouTube user viewing history but on a selection made specifically by the channel owner.

To be able to feature a channel, the owner must first turn on the option “customise the layout of your channel” in the channel settings on YouTube. To be sure that the YTDT Channel Network was only looking at featured channels and not subscriptions, I tried with my own YouTube channel after featuring the Red Bull and Vans channels but subscribing to a lot of others. After using the same settings in the YTDT Channel Network, the gdf file showed only the channels I featured and not the ones I subscribed to.

Clicking on the “channel” section of the official Red Bull YouTube channel34, the user can only see the channels which Red Bull is subscribed too. I counted 91 of them, which

33 http://labs.polsys.net/tools/youtube/mod_channels_net.php 34 https://www.youtube.com/user/redbull/channels 26

illustrates again that the YTDT Channel Network tool only extracted the featured channels of Red Bull on YouTube.

After this clarification, I opened the Red Bull channel gdf file in Gephi. Similar to the Facebook ‘like’ network, I ran consecutively “ForceAtlas 2”, “label adjust” and the “modularity class” tool. The attribute “subscribercount” was also applied here to the size of the nodes (see fig. 13).

Cross-platform comparison Fifthly, in addition to the brand network positioning, I made a comparison of the types of sport displayed on both the Red Bull and the Red Bull TV Facebook pages, and the YouTube channel, and I looked at which sports consumers engaged with the most. By selecting the ten most-engaging videos on each fifty most-engaging file, I was able to perform a cross- platform analysis. This evaluation was performed in order to discern if fans engage differently with branded video content depending on its attributes or on which platform it is displayed. I kept therefore the initial engagement filter instead of my personal engagement percentage for selecting the ten most-engaging videos (Appendix, figure 8).

In order to create this comparison, the official Red Bull35 website was used to extract the information concerning the sponsored athletes and the different sport categories. The first step was to click on the “Athlete” section and “more athletes”, and then I selected all the countries in the scroll down and copy-pasted them in a Microsoft Excel file (Appendix, figure 2). I did exactly the same under the “all disciplines” section to extract the type of sports the sponsored athletes were performing.

Using the “category” column included in the “Athletes” section, I could extract a list of sports that Red Bull’s sponsored athletes perform. From this, I took the ten videos with the highest engagement rate on the files fifty most-engaging videos. By simply filling in red the boxes where the sport was shown, I was able to ascertain which sports viewers engage most with online (Appendix, figure 8). To complete the graph for the qualitative analysis, I also included the caption, the video id, the tags made by Red Bull, and the engagement percentage calculated in the fifty most-engaging videos files.

In this qualitative analysis, the process involved clicking on each video of the fifty most- engaging videos to analyse the differences of engagement within the same page or channel. By analysing consecutively the Red Bull, Red Bull TV and Red Bull YouTube channel top fifty videos, a comparison could be made within the same page. This process was performed

35 https://www.redbull.com/en

in order to reveal some engagement patterns depending on the type of content, attributes and platforms on which the videos are posted by the brand, in order to analyse how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans through extreme sport video content (Appendix, figure 8).

IV. Findings and Discussion

In the following part, the findings will be discussed with the help of the concepts presented in the literature review. This chapter will be divided into two distinct sections. First, an interface analysis of the Red Bull TV website through the concept of affordances will be undertaken to show how the brand affords users to interact with the video content on the website. This approach also clarifies how the website features allows the brand to communicate with its consumers. In the second part, the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages as well as the Red Bull YouTube channel will be studied to understand how online interactions leads to a co-construction of the brand’s social identity online. Finally, this correlation of engagement and content provided by both fans and brands will attempt to answer the question, how does the Red Bull brand engage with its fans through video content online?

Mapping out the Red Bull brand sphere elucidated how the brand spreads out online in order to engage with consumers (see fig. 1). The combination of websites and social media allowed me to effectively characterize the two main components of the Red Bull brand online. A website section on the left, in which I included the television products of Red Bull, and a social media section on the right. The others categories; the Facilities, Red Bull Sports teams, Printed Advertising, Music and Apps, were built around it. This emphasizes how, according to Kunz, Elsässer and Santomier “Red Bull produces multiple media formats related to sport (texts, pictures, audios, broadcasts, videos, films) in order to distribute them across its own and others’ media platforms (print products, TV stations, video and films, games, mobile apps, as well as various Internet services) to reach consumers” (10).

Accordingly, and from Adam Arvidsson’s opinion, “the new possibilities for synergies and cross marketing provided by the emerging internet environment were actively utilized to multiply the channels available to marketing. Marketing thus took an increasingly multidimensional turn in the 1990s” (68). Since then, the rapid transformation of the media environment, “enable a more far-reaching subsumption of the productivity of consumers” (75). This means that the increasing use of cross-media branding allowed brands to encompass consumer productivity more broadly online.

Focusing on two brand spaces, the Red Bull TV website, and social media, will help to analyse in greater detail the possibilities of interactions between fans and brands. This includes Red Bull’s various possibilities to engage with its fans as well as fans participation through extreme sport video content.

Part I: Interface Analysis of the Red Bull TV website In this first section, looking at consumers’ possible interactions through the design of the Red Bull TV website is essential to understand its’ affordances. This means, considering if the characteristics of the website “encourage or constrain certain actions” of the consumers as stated by Bucher and Helmond (6). These characteristics can be categorized as interface and are made, in the terms of Drucker, of “an environment in which varied behaviors of embodied and situated persons will be enabled differently according to its many affordances” (12). Through this broad definition, the interface has to be understood in the opinion of Drucker, “as an environment for doing things, performing tasks, work, structuring behaviors” allowing consumers to interact with brands (13). Consequently, the design of a website has to be considered as a deliberate choice of developers and can therefore not be seen as neutral according to Thaler and Sunstein (3).

Even if one third of the visitors of the platform are accessing the video content through their smartphones or tablets, in the interest of this research, only the website will be analysed (see fig. 2). Examination of the downloaded App, demonstrated no significant changes apart from the “Responsive or adaptive” design in the words of Sanchis-Roca, being friendlier to smartphones and tablets, using swipes and other features for example. This means that only the design changes and not the content neither its possible user and brand interactions. Looking at the website and its interface is thus necessary to understand in which environment consumers and brands can interact.

Figure 2: Screenshot taken on the 9th of May on SimilarWeb.com

The Wayback machine The Wayback Machine internet archive tool36, provides insight into the steps that lead to the website as it is visible today. As Rogers argues, “with the end of the virtual/real divide, however useful, the Internet may be re-thought as a source of data about society and culture” (38). By looking at how the Internet can be used when examining a web page from a historical perspective, interactions between consumers and brands can be encapsulate.

Looking at the overall “evolution” of the website, in the terms of Rogers, is interesting in order to notice how the website has grown in its offering options for users over the years (66). The first snapshot, on the 28 July 2011, shows only a few options available: “Home”, “Shows”, “About Red Bull TV” and “Go back to RedBull.com” for the top header menu and “Featured shows” in the lower module (see fig. 3).

Figure 3: Screenshot of the 28 July 2011 taken on:

One year later, on the 25 June 2012, the website already allowed many more options for users to watch the content on the Red Bull TV homepage adding the modules “Latest episodes” and “Popular episodes” (see fig. 4). Adjusting the Red Bull TV homepage enables

36 https://web.archive.org/ 31

users to quickly and easily click on content selected by the brand. This technique is called “nudging”. Thaler and Sunstein define a “nudge” as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives” (6). This illustrates, to a certain extent, user’s impact on branded content. These suggestions made by the brand “nudged” the user to watch specific content, which in turn spreads a certain idea of the brand’s image. Accordingly, what became “Popular episodes” on Red Bull TV is defined by the viewer’s clicks through the changing interface of the website. This emphasizes how the user’s interaction with the content can have an impact on the website’s interface but also how the website’s interface can influence user’s views of content.

Figure 4: Screenshot of the 25 June 2012 taken on:

Another major change in the website’s interface can be seen on the 15 June 2015 snapshot from the Wayback Machine. The header menu is changed in order to lead the viewer into specific categories such as: “Live”, “Sports”, “Music” or “Arts & Lifestyle” (see fig. 5). Going back to the “sub-segmentation” concept based on Miloch and Lambrecht’s opinion, focusing on specific categories or type of sports is a “direct attempt to reach a desired niche market” (147). The subdivision into specific categories of the website’s header menu depicts thus the targeted marketing strategy hold by the Red Bull TV website. The fact that consumers are highly identified by the brand is visible through the changing interface over the years.

Figure 5: Screenshot of the 15 June 2015 taken on:

Finally, landing on the actual Red Bull TV website37, the user can click on “watch now” to “Lean back and Experience the Best of Red Bull TV” in their words (see fig. 6). If not, the options “Discover”, “Channels”, “TV”, “Live Events” and “Get the Apps” will direct the user on other sections of the website through sport or entertainment subcategories.

Figure 6: Screenshot taken on the 9th of May on:

37 May 2017: https://www.redbull.tv/ 33

Within this “TV” section, comparable to traditional television, it is possible to select shows that are coming up - up to almost 24 hours “ahead” - and the “just finished” ones. Selecting other content (past or upcoming) allows the user two more options: “See the transcript” or “View the entire show” related to that episode. Those two options expose the very specific possibilities afforded to the user. Overall, it is clear that this first glance at the website reveals the lack of user-generated content and user’s participation.

Website affordances For this reason, it is of prime importance to look at the elements that do allow fans to interact on the website, in short, what the website affords users to do. Second, this subheading will focus on what the website properties allow the brand to do in terms of video content.

The two options below the video can be seen as consumer-participative tools, the “Feedback” and a “Share” buttons. Even if the content is a live stream or VOD those two buttons are continuously available for the viewers.

The “feedback” button is interesting to analyse because the comment of the writer is not directly published on the website or below the video (see fig. 7). The Red Bull TV website thus offers no possibility for consumers to publicly post content and participate in the brand image shape. Focusing on fans and brands interactions, this “feedback” button emphasizes the tight control of the brand’s image on the website. This approach is different than social media platforms, such as Facebook or YouTube for example, which opens up space for consumer-generated content and feedbacks such as likes, dislikes, shares and comments as it will be discussed in the next section.

Figure 7: Screenshot taken on the 20th of April 2017 on:

The share button, available below each video content displayed on the website, redirects the user to social media platforms. This guaranties that on the website, Red Bull is the facilitator of its own brand using a top-down strategy. This negates publicly visible interactions from the users on the website, and assures completeness of content provided by the brand.

Second, the Red Bull TV is a digital video service platform and is therefore able to provide much more video content than for example, a social media platform. The brand is able to display episodes of series as well as live stream and has an easy to use, wide range of videos in all different type of sports. This last statement has to be put in perspective with the average visit duration of visitors which is around three minutes according to the data collected between the months of February and April 2017 on SimilarWeb.com38 (see fig. 2).

Even if the visit duration is short, through the main aspect of entertainment on the website, users “love” the “brand because it offers contents empowering him/her and which make him/her feel good through different contents” according to Sanchis-Roca (389). The term “love” offers to consumers, in the opinion of Sanchis-Roca “through functionality, making users’ life easier” (389). When browsing on the website, all the videos behave in the same manner which means that whatever the section, the videos open up the same way with following content on the right and an explanatory text below. As a result, this allows more freedom for the brand unlike social media which are limited in that area.

Looking at the relation between video content displayed by brands and its users encompasses also fans engagement. The following chapter will answer the question: how fans interact with extreme sport video content displayed by Red Bull on social media but also through what strategies the brand engages with them?

38 https://www.similarweb.com/ 35

Part II: Social Media Analysis This section will focus on the data collected for the fifty most-engaging videos in order to better comprehend fans engagement on Red Bull’s video content. I looked at the videos that collected the highest number of reactions, comments and shares on the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages as well as the official YouTube channel. Within the pages and channel, I will share my findings by way of five main subheadings: ‘Emotional charge’, ‘Segmentation’, ‘Electronic word of mouth’, ‘Brand networks’ and finally ‘Cross-platform comparison’. This will lead to a better understanding and deconstruction of fans engagement towards video content displayed by Red Bull, as well as the brand’s strategy to engage with its fans. This section aims to reveal the correlation between brands and their fans on social media through video content.

Emotional charge Looking first at the emotional charge and lifestyle inserted in the video content Red Bull displays, on its social platforms, aims to reveal if an increasing consumer engagement is observable. Second, this subsection focuses on the reaction button recently added to the Facebook platform in an effort to analyse how specific emotions are expressed in relation to video content.

Concerning the YouTube channel, the video with the highest engagement percentage in relation with the number of views, (1.67%), shows the “freerunning” athlete Jason Paul39, also sponsored by the Red Bull Brand, running through an airport while doing stunts. (Appendix, figure 5) The video, made with a humorous tone, reached a great number of “likes” in relation to the number of views. The second highest engagement percentage video, (1.53%), featuring Danny MacAskill in the rural countryside of Edinburgh greeting the local people while making stunts with his trial bike40 works in the same way. This highlights how, compared to the number of views, inserting an emotional aspect such as humour, significantly increases the engagement rate. In the opinion of Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel, “emotional branding is a consumer-centric, relational, and story-driven approach to forging deep and enduring affective bonds between consumers and brand” (50). This emotional relationship provides a strong impact on consumer engagement.

Moreover, the emotional charge can reflect “entire lifestyles” of brands, according to Cheverton (6). The video that harvested the highest engagement rating on the Red Bull

39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv7J2CLBYBk&t=2s 40 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7k3fnxPq0&t=121s

brand page on Facebook in the fifty most-engaging videos file, demonstrates how Red Bull conveys a whole lifestyle through its content. This video41 presents the athlete Kriss Kyle, also a Red Bull sponsored athlete, riding his BMX (Appendix, figure 6). Entitled “Kriss Kyle Kaleidoscope” the video is produced by the Red Bull Media House in association with the Xepria Z5 Premium phone powered by Sony. This entire project related to the video emphasizes the lifestyle the brand provides through its video content and its partnership with other brands. In addition, on the side of the post, a link is provided for Kriss Kyle’s Facebook page as well as a link for the RedBull.com website in which a whole section is dedicated to the Kaleidoscope project.

On the side of the post, a hashtag “BestOf2015” is also inserted as well as two other posts within the fifty most-engaging videos ranked on 30th and 41st place. The 30th ranked post entitled: “This had to be 2015's most extraordinary run –Aaron Gwin win in Leogang after snapping his chain!”42 also has the highest percentage in terms of engagement per views with 5.29% (Appendix, figure 6). This could partly be explained by the “out of the ordinary” aspect of the video, as mentioned in the caption, the biker losing his chain but still winning the race. Also, the links are exactly the same as on the Kaleidoscope video with a link to Aaron Gwin’s page, also sponsored by Red Bull, and a link to the RedBull.com website.

This lifestyle can also be seen on the most viewed video on the Red Bull YouTube channel on the fifty most-engaging videos file (Appendix, figure 5). The video, entitled “Danny MacAskill’s Imaginate”43, is categorized as “Film & Animation” being part of the 2014 Epecuén Movie of the famous biker Danny MacAskill. Also, the brand added a “feature content” on the video redirecting the viewer to the Red Bull TV platform (see fig. 8). This not only illustrates the specific inputs the brand utilizes to redirect viewers to their Red Bull TV website, but also how the video is much more than a bike video. It is a movie of an athlete surrounded by a lifestyle.

Figure 8: Screenshot taken on the 9th of May on the “Imaginate” video on YouTube

41 https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156351823110352 42 https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156386030800352 43 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv3xVOs7_No&t=12s

It is no surprise that Danny MacAskill is an athlete sponsored by Red Bull. Famous for his bike trial videos, he can be found in the athlete category “Trialbiking” on the Red Bull website44. He is not only in the first position, but appears in the 3rd, 5th and 10th place in the fifty most-engaging videos which makes him an important figure of Red Bull’s brands image on the YouTube platform through the lenses of consumers engagement (Appendix, figure 5). This exemplifies how an athlete can trigger engagement by creating a sense of familiarity with viewers.

These few examples emphasize how a video can generate more engagement through an emotional connection by way of the captions or through the content itself. Also, the content can convey the lifestyle of the brand providing additional links leading to website sections highlighting the project’s background and “making of.”

The emotional content and lifestyle embedded in a video can also be negatively received and criticized by the consumers. In the opinion of Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel, the “risk of emotional-branding strategies is their potential to expose firms to a particular type of cultural backlash” (50). When looking at one of the videos with a relatively lower percentage of engagement, (0.33%), entitled “Sewer Surfing with Poopies”, almost a fourth of the engagement are dislikes. Also, in the comments, viewers complain about the length of the intro, the excessive use of “dude” and “bro” words in the language of the protagonists, as well as the sport performance (see fig. 9).

Figure 9: Screenshot taken on the 12th of May on: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lotgqd7FZKs>

44 https://www.redbull.com/en/browse-all-athletes?filter=tag%3ATrialbiking 38

However, in line with De Vries, Gensler, and Leeflang argument, “positive and negative comments enhance a general interest in the brand post, which leads to more commenting” (89). In short, even negative feedback produces brand awareness and views on social media and as a result more engagement. On the video with the least of engagement percentage in the fifty most-engaging YouTube file for example, 0.07%, even if the comments are mainly positive, it has 5’398’342 views compared to 17’775’925 for the one previously mentioned.

The aim here is not to answer the question: what type of content should be or should not be posted by a brand, but essentially to observe what triggers fans and brands interactions on social media.

The second concept of this subsection considers that the “affective bonds between consumers and brand” in the words of Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel, can also be expressed through the reaction buttons on the Facebook platform (50). Allowing the users to choose between the “Love”, “Haha”, “Wow”, “Sad” or “Angry” reaction in addition to the existing “Like” is also a specific way for brands to observe users’ emotions towards the video content. For example, on the video ranked 11th of the Red Bull fifty most-engaging videos, “A slackline over a 120m drop at an altitude of 2700m. Because why not.”45 The reactions of the consumers are essentially “Love” and “Wow” reactions. This works as a validation of the users towards the content displayed by the brand. But the content can also be rejected by the “Angry” reaction. Nevertheless, the videos displayed by Red Bull within the three fifty most-engaging videos files have very few “angry” reactions. Negative reactions are mostly expressed in the comments - as mentioned previously on the YouTube platform – on the Facebook pages (see fig. 10).

Figure 10: Screenshot taken on the 14th of May on:

Segmentation Additionally, fans also emotionally engage with content displayed online by the brand through the brand activity. In the opinion of Cheverton, “brand activity builds the nature of the customer interaction” (21). Depending on the choices, reactions and engagement of fans on the content the brands can “learn” according to Cheverton, which leads to a segmentation

45 https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10158709101455352/?type=2&theater

and more accurately-targeted consumers. This process is defined by Cheverton as a “virtuous circle of action and reaction” (1).

Figure 11: “The virtuous circle of a good brand”, Cheverton (2).

This can be seen on Red Bull’s posts through more “personalized” posts such as a caption in specific languages, or by interacting with particular sports and events that the fans are passionate about. As a result, this leads to an improved relationship and interaction between fans and brands as explained by Miloch and Lambrecht:

Participants (…) are arguably more identified and passionate about these particular sports than the average sport consumer and their participation and support has likely become an integral aspect of their everyday life. Because they are highly identified and because these events are likely integral to their lifestyle, it is possible that participants and supporters may be more likely than the average sport consumer to become aware and to purchase the products of sponsors associated with these events (147).

On the Red Bull Facebook page, the use of other languages is common in the fifty most- engaging videos file. In contrast, on the Red Bull TV Facebook page and the Red Bull YouTube channel, aside from the 50th post, all the captions are made in English. This exemplifies how Red Bull identifies and segments its viewers by language across its pages. The various type of sports displayed on Red Bull social media platforms will be analysed in the ‘Cross-platform comparison’ subheading below.

As the Red Bull Facebook pages engage in other languages depending on the content or the platform, it is essential to look at the fans in order to identify if Red Bull intentionally segments their audience in order to increase the fans engagement and interactions.

The Netvizz “fans per country” data from the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages is used to explain the background of the fans in order to see how Red Bull engages with particular categories of fans. For the Red Bull page, the most fans are from the United States, then from, India, Mexico, Brazil, France, the United Kingdom and Germany (Appendix, figure 9). It is thus not surprising to see that the 5th post with the highest engagement number46 - in the Red Bull fifty most engaged videos - is in Spanish due to the Spanish speaking fans of Mexico. Other posts are made in many languages such as Turkish, Polish, Greek, Finnish, Italian, Norwegian, German and Macedonian according to the location of the events or the targeted audience.

The 45 countries given by Netvizz illustrates how the Red Bull fans are globally distributed. This spread of fans does not only involve different languages but also different time zones. It is interesting to see that only one post out of the fifty was posted at one in the morning intended obviously for a non-European time zone. The others are generally posted either around ten in the morning, noon or four in the afternoon. According to Pletikosa and Michahelles, “timing is an important aspect of scheduling” on Facebook to trigger fan engagement (848). Nevertheless, there was no scheduling pattern visible on the different pages.

Patterns of how the Red Bull brand engages with its fans through video content is apparent based on fans’ actions and backgrounds for example. Electronic word of mouth, above and beyond Red Bull’s targeting strategy, has to be considered as an important driving factor.

Electronic Word of Mouth According to Henning-Thurau et al. electronic word of mouth relates to “any positive or negative statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the Internet” (39). In addition to the fact that user-generated content such as comments is available online, in the opinion of Godes et al. “customer’s experiences are possibly influential in another’s decision” which leads to a potentially higher amount of engagement (416). This phenomenon is visible within the comments made by users reaching out to their friends and

46 https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156332950445352/?type=2&theater 41

mentioning each other’s names. This results in an increase of the number of views and potentially engagement (see fig. 12).

Figure 12: Screenshot taken on the 5th of June on:

Another feature enhancing brand awareness and potential consumer engagement through electronic word of mouth is shares. Posts shared by fans are an example, of the brand’s awareness increase through users potentially influencing other people’s decision or conception of the brand’s image. To improve fans shares, based on Jenkins, Ford and Green argument, brands tend to create content in “easy-to-share” formats making it easier to spread online (6). In their opinion, the “spreadability” of video content refers “to the potential - both technical and cultural - for audiences to share content of their own purposes (…)” (6). Indeed, sharing a video only requires one click from a user, but can tell a lot about the brand’s identity online.

Moreover, the concept of participatory culture mentioned above, describing “the cultural production and social interactions of fan communities”, can be seen through another type of user-generated content co-constructing the brand’s image (2). On the official Red Bull YouTube channel, within the fifty most-engaging videos, fifteen of the Red Bull videos are followed up by videos of users’ channels (Appendix, figure 5). According to Gensler et al., this emphasizes the “idea that brand identity is reflected by the image and lifestyle of its customers” and through social media “makes those associations more visible and impactful”

(250). Users thus have, to a certain extent, an impact on the brand identity online through the “Up next” video “Autoplay” feature on YouTube.

In “Danny MacAskill’s imaginate” video on YouTube, mentioned previously, it is very interesting to note that the “Up next video” is not from the Red Bull channel but from the Cut Media channel. This channel from Scotland also features Danny MacAskill and creates “stunning commercial and branded content across both broadcast and online campaigns.”47

Looking at the “Up next” videos related to each of the fifty most-engaging videos YouTube file it is possible to see that thirteen other brand channels appear (Appendix, figure 5). Indeed, “GoPro”, “Cut Media”, “Volcom”, “Monster Energy” and other channels are suggested. Those specific channels emphasize again the idea that “brands can encompass entire lifestyles” (6) according to Peter Cheverton. Here, the brand surrounds its drink with other similar branded content relating to extreme sports to “strengthen the energy drinks image”, in the words of Zagnoli and Radicchi, as well as the brand’s identity online (11-12).

Brand Networks For this reason, the value of the connections between brands on social networks is useful to analyse in order to understand how the brand positions itself online towards consumers. In addition to the concept of lifestyle, brands are “inserted into networks of interaction and communication”, as stated by Arvidsson in the literature review section (69). This means that on Facebook for example, the brands are inserted into social groups of communication, depending on which pages and people follows them and which pages they follow back. This is an essential driver of fans and brands interactions.

Word of mouth (WOM), especially electronic word of mouth, is central to consumers’ perception and engagement towards the brand online as mentioned previously. Nevertheless, to be applicable to brand networks, WOM and user-generated content in general has to be understood not only as individual influences across consumers but on the level of communities. According to Arvidsson and Caliandro “brand managers can use communities as source of product and brand innovation [in order to] A.M. experience co- creation” on social media (728). This is an essential element when analysing by which other brands Red Bull is surrounded on social media. In short, which pages Red Bull is subscribing or “liking” back in order to reach communities of consumers.

Concerning the YouTube channel network, the 23 featured channels show a specific selection made by the brand (see fig. 13). This reveals how the brand uses other channels

47 https://www.youtube.com/user/cutmedia1/about 43

such as the “Ride Channel”, “Hurley”, “DC Shoes” or “Vans” to position itself online and surround the brand with a lifestyle. Using brands usually associated with Skateboarding or Surfing products discloses clearly the brand’s intention on YouTube to create a particular brand identity.

DC Shoes Quiksilver devinsupertramp Riley Poor Red Bull Records Outside Television

Red Bull Music& Culture Longboards by Original Skateboards

Burton Snowboards Hurley Red Bull Vans WOOZY BMX VIDEOS AlliSports SourceFed Wings for Life World Run

X Games Nike GoPro Red Bull Racing Network A Red Bull eSports Epic Meal Time RIDE Channel

Figure 13: Red Bull YouTube channel network

Made with the help of the Gephi tool, as explained in the ‘Description of the method’ section, the three visualisations illustrate “sub-units or communities, which are sets of highly interconnected nodes” (Blondel, 2). The connected nodes are portrayed on the graphs through arrows and colours. The arrows mean that the nodes are ‘featured’, in YouTube’s case, or ‘liked’, concerning Facebook, by the central node. The colours, represent communities of fans.

Figure 14: Red Bull TV Facebook page ‘like’ network

With regards to the ‘like’ networks visualization of the Red Bull and Red Bull TV, the nodes provide an overview of all the Facebook pages these two brand pages ‘likes’ back (see fig. 14 and 15). In the Red Bull TV Facebook page ‘like’ network, the purple colour shows the biggest category of interconnected nodes with a total of 48.72%. Each node represents a Facebook brand page, such as Google or Metallica and the colour means that the pages are connected to each other’s through similar communities of fans. The modularity class applied to this graph “describes how the network is compartmentalized into sub-networks” as stated in the Github website48 created by the developers of the tool. Within these nodes, Red Bull TV ‘likes’ back brand pages such as Facebook, Instagram, Red Bull or Amazon.com having a greater number of fans. This practice can be explained in order to reach a maximum of users on the platform to enhance the awareness of the Red Bull TV Facebook page towards consumers.

Other nodes, such as the Pedro Barros or Alex Sorgente Facebook pages, represent athletes fan pages. It is interesting to see that they are both sponsored by Red Bull. This means that Red Bull TV does not only ‘like’ brand pages with a higher amount of ‘likes’ but

48 https://github.com/gephi/gephi/wiki/Modularity 45

also reinforced its brand identity and seeks for particular type of communities through their ‘like’ network on Facebook in order to position itself online and surround the brand with a lifestyle.

Focusing on a smaller Facebook brand page makes it easier to analyse because there are less nodes at “depth 1”. The Red Bull Facebook brand page shows a more complex” (see fig. 15). In this visualisation, Red Bull TV is located by a red circle that I added later on in order to make it easier to spot the brand page within the visualization. It is interesting to see that Athletes such as Danny MacAskill and Kriss Kyle are also ‘liked’ by the Red Bull Facebook page showing a consistent brand image and lifestyle towards social media.

Figure 15: Red Bull Facebook page ‘like’ network

Also, the size of the Red Bull brand page node is impressive compared to bands such as ‘Metallica’ or brands such as ‘Volkswagen’ or ‘GoPro’. The node, representing the fan count of the Red Bull page, is the biggest node on the network (see fig. 15). Unlike the Red Bull TV Facebook page, Red Bull is for this reason definitely seeking for particular type of communities through ‘liking’ back specific brand pages. Positioning the brand page online allows first to the Red Bull brand to ‘like’ its’ own multiple pages such as ‘Red Bull Racing’, ‘Red Bull Crashed Ice’ for example, to reinforce its brand sphere. This practice adds to the Red Bull brand an online used-value coming back to Arvidsson’s argument, including the users in a “particular subcultural universe” (69). This allows a group of users, through the brand’s identity and lifestyle, “to act in the style of that universe” (69). By drinking Red Bull, one can enhance its sport performances or be part of the universe Red Bull carries out on social media. Therefore, Red Bull by ‘liking’ pages such as “Us Open of Surfing”, “X Games” or “The Ski channel” the intention of the brand page to ‘like’ pages of a particular and distinct lifestyle are clear.

To enhance consumer participation, the brand has to have a clear brand identity according to Jenkins et al. as well as Gensler et al. A clear brand identity requires the brand not only to have a clear strategy around the product but also to surround its brand with a lifestyle in the opinion of Celia Lury but also Zagnoli and Radicchi. The lifestyle of Red Bull is here expressed by the ‘likes’ of particular kind of brand pages in order to create a universe around the brand and can be exemplified, according to Gensler et al. by “brands friendly following other brands in the social media space” (251). Therefore, the findings undertaken here aim to show how brands position themselves online in order to be part of a subcultural universe though which the consumers can act. Brand networks visualization illustrates the concept of brand identity carried out on social media to allow consumers to produce content within a strong lifestyle.

In this context, the last subheading of this section aims to analyse and compare, taking on board the previous strategies of emotional charge, segmentation, word of mouth and positioning, consumer engagement on the video content displayed on the Red Bull, Red Bull TV Facebook pages and Red Bull YouTube channel. Therefore, the type of sports displayed by the brand will be analysed to reveal if the content has an impact on consumers engagement. 47

Cross-platform analysis The first step of this subheading is to compare the engagement rate of the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages, as well as the YouTube channel in order to understand the features and properties of the three different pages. After that, the niche sports displayed across the platforms, with which the consumer engaged the most, will be analysed through the concepts of ‘Emotional charge’, ‘Segmentation, ‘Electronic word of mouth’ and ‘Brand networks’.

Comparing the Facebook pages and the YouTube channel reveals the difference of engagement rate reaching 2.26% and 2.27% on Facebook and 0.48% on YouTube (Appendix 5, 6 and 7). This very low rate of engagement is explained by Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian because “particular media, such as (...) Facebook, seem to offer more opportunities for marketers to collaborate with consumers to circulate positive sentiment about, and increase the visibility of, brands” contrasting with other platforms such as YouTube for example (111). Additionally, the main reason of this low engagement rate per views of users on YouTube is because the platform does not compel users to be logged in to watch videos on the platform, unlike Facebook. For that reason, users that are not logged in are not able to like, dislike or comment the video but are however counted as viewers (see fig. 16).

Figure 16: Screenshot taken on YouTube

Moreover, by comparing the engagement percentage of the Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages, it is possible to state that the difference of engagement is not necessarily related to the number of fans. Both have respectively 2.72% and 2.26% engagement average which is a relatively close number, especially taking into account the imprecisions of the fifty most-engaging videos encountered with the Netvizz tool, but the pages have 47’614’617 likes compare to 1’892’205 for Red Bull TV (Appendix, figure 6 and 7).

On YouTube, even if the engagement percentage is low and that the platform does not offer the best tools to communicate with consumers according to Smith, Fischer, and Yongjian, the platform is nonetheless a good opportunity for the marketers of a brand, “in particular, those seeking a subtle life-world placement and association with a particular constellation of brands” to enhance consumer and brand interactions and awareness (111). This 48

phenomenon has been exemplified by the fact that Red Bull is not the only facilitator of its own brand, opening space for user-generated content and personal or brands channels in the “Up next” videos. The brand is, in this context, dealing with a “particular constellation of brands” part of Red Bull’s brand image on the platform (111).

Excluding the number of views and looking essentially at the engagement category on the three fifty most-engaging videos files, the Red Bull TV has by far the highest number with 2’035’967 clicks on the most-engaged-with video compared to the Red Bull Facebook and YouTube official pages (Appendix, figure 5, 6 and 7). Again, this engagement number is a sum of the reactions, comments and shares on Facebook and likes, dislikes and comments on YouTube. The most-engaged-with videos of the official Red Bull page and YouTube channel only reach 147’696 and 413’272 clicks. It is interesting to note that the page with the highest number of fans, the Red Bull Facebook page has actually the least clicks on its’ most-engaged-with post. Again, this highlights that a greater number of fans following a page as well the platform used by the brand does not necessarily influence the number of clicks on a post.

The number of clicks on Red Bull TV’s most-engaged-with video, is explainable through the view count, reaching more than 104 million views. The video shows a “Concours de Castells”49, a human tower show in Tarragona, close to Barcelona. The only caption added by Red Bull TV is “OMG”. No hashtags or tags have been additionally put. This Catalan event has been shared more than a million of times which also explains this unusual number of views. Regrouping a large number of participants per team plus the spectators could explain why this event has been shared that much. This exemplifies the argument that “many-to-many communication on social media platforms is characterized with exponential growth of the WOM volume”, resulting in “viral marketing” (Pletikosa and Michahelles 844; Riemer and vom Brocke’s 98).

Reaching a “sub-segment of sport consumers” instead of displaying mainstream sports allows the brand to grasp more accurately-targeted potential consumers, as explained in the literature review section, by Miloch and Lambrecht (147). This demonstrates again how by proceeding to a segmentation of the audience and focusing on a particular event, fans’ engagement and interactions increase drastically.

By taking the ten videos with the most engagement on each platform, I realized that more sport or entertainment categories had to be added to the ones established by Red Bull on

49 https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1801904623419626

the “category” column included in the “Athletes” section50 (Appendix, figure 8). The “Soapbox” category for example was added because of the “Lights Out”51 video in the ten most-engaging videos chart. This reveals how Red Bull do not displays mainstream sports on its channel but various entertainment content. This emphasizes also, how Red Bull’s branded entertainment video content is a merge between entertainment and advertising where “brands are embedded into storylines” according to Samuel and David Hudson (492).

Through the chart, the specific use of niche sports by the Red Bull brand is noticeable. On the platforms, sports such as B.A.S.E Jumping, Enduro, Mountain bike (MTB), Surfing or Trialbiking are displayed across the pages (Appendix, figure 8). These types of sports relate to Rosner and Shropshire’s definition of niche sport, mentioned in the literature review, as a sport that does not receive “the same level of media coverage or spectatorship as mainstream sports enjoy” (44). This use of specific sport performances results thus in engaging with a more “homogenous” demographic segment of the consumers (Miloch and Lambrecht 147). Creating categories in order to engage with consumers more accurately relates to the segmentation carried out by the Red Bull brand as explained in subheading above. Through this accurately-targeted audience the video becomes potentially more spreadable through consumer shares in the opinion of Miloch and Lambrecht: “because they are highly identified and because these events are likely integral to their lifestyle” consumers are inclined to engage with this content they are familiar with (147). In other words, through the segmentation made by Red Bull and the concept of participatory culture mentioned above, involving interactions of fans merged with electronic word of mouth, it is visible how consumers “influence another’s decisions” which leads thus to a potentially higher amount of engagement (Godes et al. 416).

Moreover, the lifestyle of the Red Bull brand can be seen through the overall use of Motorbike or bicycle related sports across its brand pages encompassing the users in a “particular subcultural universe” to go back to Arvidsson’s statement (69). Out of the ten videos, six are displaying motorbikes and bicycles on the YouTube and Red Bull Facebook pages and eight on the Red Bull TV page (Appendix, figure 8).

Nevertheless, on closer examination, there is not a sport category that is displayed across the three channels within the ten most-engaging videos. This reveals the breath of focus across Red Bull’s brand pages. For example, on the Red Bull Facebook page, consumers engage with BMX videos as on the Red Bull TV the highest engagement rate relates more

50 The sport categories made by Red Bull within the athlete section was used as a starting point of my sport categorisation. 51 https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156374042460352 50

to Mountain bike (MTB), Downhill videos. Even if these ten examples per platform provide a narrow overview of the overall videos displayed by the brand on its platforms, it reveals with which subcategories of sport videos consumers engage the most. This correlation of content and engagement shows how the brand engages with its fans but also how consumers interact with the Red Bull brand through extreme sport video content on social media. This phenomenon, through user-generated content, produces the co-creation of the brand’s social identity.

V. Further research

This study acknowledges both strengths and limitations, which are important to recognise for future research. Red Bull’s social media pages and the digital video service website Red Bull TV are difficult to study over a set period of time, due to the fact that they evolve in a quick changing landscape. A brief investigation of Red Bull’s Facebook page offers other opportunities for future inquiries. For example, the company has, as of May 2017, begun to use GIFs to interact with fans in video comment sections on the page. This strategy shows how a brand can adapt, change and reshape its interactions with users’ over time. To this end, future researchers could perform a different form of content analysis and explore the changes in Red Bull’s methods of interaction with its fans. Also, another selection of the Facebook pages can be undertaken focusing on particular sports or countries, for example. Links and images could also be included in order to proceed to an analysis of the interaction between a brand and their fans online.

Additionally, a number of issues need to be further addressed concerning the Red Bull TV website. First, each of the options in the header menu on the home page has to be studied more in depth, in order to better understand users’ affordances and the sub-segmentation made by the brand on the platform. Second, an investigation of the other areas of the website offers different research opportunities. For example, a categorisation of the different type of sports displayed on the platform, similar to the one undertaken in Sanchis-Roca’s article, would be fruitful in order to study the content made available for fans by the brand. This leads to an analysis of how the brand carries out a brand identity on the website. Also, this research focuses only on the Red Bull TV website and could be expanded by looking at other websites mentioned in the brand sphere visualization.

Regarding the fans’ point of view, it would be interesting to proceed to a more comprehensive qualitative analysis, through surveys for example, in order to better explain the possible practices of engagement. This means that to elaborate on fans and brands interactions, the researcher has to merge a deep understanding of the consumers’ choices of interactions with the brand’s activity. In addition to this, the Netvizz tool allows to extract the comments of Facebook users specifically through the settings “full data” in the “page data module”. Further content-specific insights can be gained through an analysis and a classification of the comments. This process could help elaborate on the concept of user- generated content and electronic word of mouth.

VI. Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the possible interactions of fans and brands, through video content displayed by the Red Bull brand on both social media platforms and a video service website. This investigation brings a contribution to the existing literature concerning brand management and interactions online. Considering the technological evolution of the Content Delivery Network (CDN) explained by Joon Ian Wong, as well as the merge of advertising and entertainment embedding brands “into story lines”, resulted in what Samuel and David Hudson called branded entertainment (492). This merge helped contextualise Red Bull’s video content displayed online. Additionally, the advent of social networks in the beginning of the 21st century allowed brands to be part of consumer connections on platforms that “are trusted because of shared experiences and the perception of shared values or shared needs” (Clemons, Barnett and Appadurai 268).

The interactions of fans and brands through the concepts of participatory culture and brand social identity have demonstrated how the contribution of consumers generates a co- construction of the brand’s identity online. User-generated content and electronic word of mouth created by the users below the video content illustrated how, in the opinion Godes et al., “customer’s experiences are possibly influential in another’s decision” (416). This statement was exemplified through the comments below Red Bull’s video content made by users, reaching out to their friends and mentioning each other’s names, therefore generating electronic word of mouth. This contribution, positive or negative, could be seen in an increase of the number of views and as a result, higher engagement.

Hereby, the “spreadability”, in the words of Jenkins, of the brand’s image and awareness among consumers can be “individually or collaboratively produced, modified, shared and consumed” (Smith, Fischer and Yongjian 103). Inserted within “networks of interaction and communication (…) adding dimensions of used-value to the brand”, the brand allows one to “feel and be in a particular way”, as stated by Arvidsson (69; 8). The brand networks analysis helped to demonstrate how “sub-units or communities, which are sets of highly interconnected nodes”, constitute the brand networks on social media (Blondel, 2). Considering brands as a “medium of exchange” allowed me to reveal how they could be understood as objects of interpretation put in the hands of the consumers (Lury). These consumers could therefore be able to carry out and “create their own meanings” in the opinion of Arvidsson (68). The “Up next” videos on YouTube demonstrated how the brand identity is reflected “by the image and lifestyle of its customers” according to Gensler et al. (250). Fifteen of the videos following Red Bull content, out of the fifty top engaged videos file, were produced by users on their own channels (Appendix, figure 5).

Nevertheless, this study demonstrated how a clear brand identity and “practices of brand positioning” from a brand’s perspective, are necessary in order to share a common brand image with consumers (Lury 67). The lifestyle surrounding the brand’s image could also be seen through the brand networks analysis of the Red Bull social media pages undertaken in this study. The Red Bull featured channels on YouTube emphasizes the idea that the brand surrounds its drink with other similar branded content relating to extreme sports to “strengthen the energy drinks image” as well as the brand’s identity online in the words of Zagnoli and Radicchi (11-12). In addition to this, the lifestyle of the brand could be revealed through the emotional charge inserted into the content. Red Bull connects emotionally with its consumers in a variety of ways, for example; by using the athlete Danny MacAskill several times; employing a humorous tone; surrounding the Kaleidoscope video with an entire website. As mentioned above, this “relational, and story-driven approach” helps to forge “deep and enduring affective bonds between consumers and brand” in the opinion of Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel (50).

By classifying the type of sports displayed on Red Bull’s social media platforms, a sub- segmentation of sport consumers could be established. Although a tendency to display mainly motorcycle and bicycle videos was revealed, it was found that none of the sports categories was used across the three social media pages in the ten most engaged videos of viewers. The “virtuous circle of action and reaction” elaborated by Cheverton, helped to understand how fans’ choices and engagement help the brand “learn” and understand “what makes you feel good” (1). This means that the brand adapts the content displayed according to the engagement of their viewers.

On the Red Bull TV website perspective, The Wayback Machine also helped to emphasize the correlation between fans and brands interactions online, through an analysis of the changing interface of the Red Bull TV website over time. The affordances the website allows the users, especially through the feedback button, helped reveal the bottom up strategy undertaken by Red Bull on its website which led to the restriction of visible user-generating content. Moreover, the website properties enable the brand to display more content and make use of more functionalities to provide a lifestyle. This could then be overtaken, on social media engendering the co-creation of the brand’s social identity, through user- generated content.

To this end, my contribution to the existing literature is evaluating how a digital method approach turns familiar pages into findings. According to Rogers it “renders” the data allowing an analysis of the results in a “new light” (3). The tools used in this research enabled me to shape a cross platform comparison of the Red Bull brand through video content in

innovative ways. Moreover, the strength of this digital method approach is its applicability to other fields of studies regarding fans and brands interactions online. Nevertheless, studying a brand that learns “how to match the circumstances of time” according to Cheverton, ensues in an analysis of Red Bull’s interactions with its fans within a specific period of time (3). The quick and constant changing landscape of social media and websites will consequently continue to alter the ways in which brands and their fans interact online.

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Appendix

Figure 1: Official Red Bull page, http://energydrink-us.redbull.com/en/company

Athletes Count Coutries Count Type Count

1 Argentina6 6 Adventure3 3

2 Australia29 29 Aerobatic Flying7 7

3 Austria43 43 Air Race8 8

4 Belgium9 9 Alpine Ski8 8

5 Bolivia1 1 B.A.S.E. Jumping1212

6 Bosnia and Herzegovina1 1 Baseball2 2

7 Brazil20 20 Beach Volleyball1313

8 Bulgaria1 1 Bike6 6

9 Canada24 24 BMX43 43

10 Chile6 6 Cliff Diving2 2

11 Colombia4 4 Climbing14 14

12 Costa Rica2 2 Cycling3 3

13 Croatia2 2 Drifting3 3

14 Czech Republic16 16 Enduro14 14

15 Denmark7 7 eSports7 7

16 Dominican Republic1 F1 6 6

17 Estonia2 2 FIFA 1 1

18 Fiji 1 1 Fitness Training1 1

19 Finland6 6 FMX4 4

20 France28 28 Football7 7

21 Georgia2 2 Freerunning3 3

22 Germany32 32 Freeski37 37

23 Greece6 6 Freestyle Soccer2 2

24 Guatemala1 1 Kayaking15 15

25 Hungary3 3 Kiteboarding9 9

26 India3 3 League of Legends11

27 Ireland4 4 Moto22 2

28 Israel1 1 Moto32 2

29 Italy19 19 MotoGP5 5

30 Japan14 14 Motorsports28 28

31 Jordan1 1 MotoX28 28

32 Kazakhstan1 1 MTB37 37

33 Kuwait3 3 News1 1

34 Latvia4 4 Offroad4 4

35 Lebanon3 3 Paragliding8 8

36 Lithuania3 3 Parkour2 2

37 Malaysia1 1 Rally17 17

38 Maldives2 2 Rally Raid13 13

39 Mexico10 10 Rallycross7 7

40 Netherlands15 15 Running12 12

41 New Zealand10 10 Sailing8 8

42 Norway15 15 Skateboarding41 41

43 Peru5 5 Skiing3 3

44 Philippines1 1 Skydiving11 11

45 Poland9 9 Slacklining1 1

46 Portugal6 6 Smash Bros1 1

47 Qatar3 3 Snow1 1

48 Romania2 2 Snowboarding36 36

49 Russia15 15 Snowmobile3 3

50 Saudi Arabia2 2 Speedriding2 2

51 Serbia2 2 Street Fighter3 3

52 Singapore2 2 Superbike4 4

53 Slovakia4 4 Supercross1 1

54 Slovenia8 8 Surfing35 35

55 South Africa17 17 Trialbiking4 4

56 South Korea3 3 Trials4 4

57 Spain25 25 Triathlon24 24

58 Sri Lanka1 1 Wakeboarding19 19 59 Sweden13 13 Windsurfing7 7 Figure 2: Athletes list on the RedBull.com website 60 Switzerland21 21 Wingsuit Flying6 6

61 Taiwan2 2 WRC2 2

62 Turkey7 7 Missing 53

63 Ukraine5 5 TOTAL 666

64 United Arab Emirates3 3

65 United Kingdom29 29

66 United States118 118 67 Venezuela1 1 63 TOTAL 666

Events

Count Countries Count Categories

1 Australia1 1 1 Adventure10 10

2 Austria11 11 2 Aerobatic Flying1 1

3 Bosnia and Herzegovina2 2 3 Air Race11 11

4 Brazil1 1 4 Art2 2

5 Croatia1 1 5 B-Boys6 6

6 Czech Republic17 17 6 Beach Volleyball1 1

7 Denmark1 1 7 Bike3 3

8 Finland2 2 8 BMX1 1

9 France3 3 9 Cliff Diving8 8

10 Germany5 5 10 Climbing1 1

11 Greece2 2 11 Culture2 2

12 Hong Kong2 2 12 Cycling2 2

13 Italy5 5 13 Dance2 2

14 Japan5 14 Discover13 13

15 Kazakhstan1 1 15 EDM4 4

16 Latvia4 4 16 Electronic5 5

17 Netherlands2 2 17 Enduro1 1

18 Poland3 3 18 Event & Festival1 1

19 Portugal4 4 19 F1 19 19

20 Russia3 3 20 FIFA 1 1

21 Slovakia3 3 21 Fitness Training1 1

22 Slovenia4 4 22 FMX1 1

23 South Korea1 1 23 Football6 6

24 Spain1 1 24 Freerunning1 1

25 Switzerland4 4 25 Games3 3

26 Taiwan1 1 26 Moto214 14

27 Turkey1 1 27 Moto314 14

28 United States6 6 28 MotoGP15 15

91 29 Motorsports11 11

30 MTB22 22

31 Music16 16

32 Music Festival21 21

33 News5 5

34 Offroad3 3

35 Rally9 9

36 Rally Raid1 1

37 Rap5 5

38 Red Bull Music Academy4 4

39 Red Bull Thre3Style2 2

40 Red Bull TV1 1

41 Rock1 1

42 Running11 11

43 Skateboarding14 14

44 Triathlon1 1

45 Urban Culture1 1

46 WRC9 9 286

Figure 3: Events list on the RedBull.com website

Figure 4: Social Traffic of Red Bull TV website taken from SimilarWeb.com

YOU TUBE video list YTDT video list Best 50 taken from 6373 videos

Count channelTitle videoId publishedAtSQL videoTitle videoCategoryLabeldurationSec viewCount likeCount dislikeCount commentCountTotal engagement Percentage engagement/views Up Next 1 Red Bull Sv3xVOs7_No 19/06/13 18:15 Danny MacAskill's ImaginateFilm & Animation 434 66170560 385299 12619 15354 413272 0.62% Cut Media 2 Red Bull Cj6ho1-G6tw 16/11/10 16:55 Danny MacAskill - "Way Back Home"Sports 358 39119741 281550 3448 30807 315805 0.81% Cut Media 3 Red Bull M0jmSsQ5ptw 11/11/12 22:53 The Athlete Machine - Red Bull KlugeScience & Technology 91 27553047 252214 4449 12087 268750 0.98% GoPro 4 Red Bull FHtvDA0W34I 15/10/12 02:06 Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission HighlightsSports 463 41588470 170968 5902 29685 206555 0.50% danieluan89 5 Red Bull K_7k3fnxPq0 12/10/16 09:00 Danny MacAskillâ€™s Wee Day OutSports 97 7914306 116066 1236 3791 121093 1.53% Cut Media 6 Red Bull Mv7J2CLBYBk 07/12/16 10:00 Last Call for Mr. PaulShows 5033 6250550 98508 3616 2364 104488 1.67% Red Bull 7 Red Bull ckpwSAv5we8 08/11/14 00:20 Downhill Mountain Biking in the Wilds of AfricaSports 987 13111130 82400 2482 2596 87478 0.67% Red Bull 8 Red Bull kh29_SERH0Y 16/02/11 00:56 The Art of FLIGHT | Official TrailerSports 402 16284087 73397 975 6523 80895 0.50% StapleMug 9 Red Bull nPuEU16P3zg 15/02/13 20:22 Red Bull Perspective - A Skateboard FilmSports 230 8645612 73035 1357 4913 79305 0.92% Volcom 10 Red Bull PiF5HHkHvX0 28/05/14 15:00 Danny MacAskill - EpecuÃ©n - 2014Sports 633 12876184 73445 2322 3007 78774 0.61% GoPro 11 Red Bull Hv_DRJZZ2qI 24/10/13 23:00 Red Bull Rampage From Start to FinishSports 384 19613494 60257 2158 1664 64079 0.33% Cut Media 12 Red Bull 4MiYtvbK4JY 04/10/12 00:50 Human-Powered Freerunning Machine - with Jason PaulSports 124 8179812 52704 1891 4084 58679 0.72% Red Bull 13 Red Bull lotgqd7FZKs 02/08/13 20:01 Sewer Surfing with Poopies | Who is JOB 3.0: S2E6Sports 235 17775925 42623 12827 3139 58589 0.33% Red Bull 14 Red Bull XpmEaSi5YNw 09/06/15 15:00 Tyler Fernengel BMX Session: SilverdomeSports 499 8798760 49335 1985 1288 52608 0.60% Red Bull 15 Red Bull igp9sJkuAnU 10/06/14 20:30 Downhill MTB GoPro footage through Scottish HighlandsSports 167 6174578 48086 1067 2153 51306 0.83% NateHills 16 Red Bull LCl2UH00fhA 31/01/14 13:13 Hachim Mastour vs. Neymar Jr. - Freestyle football juggling battleSports 208 9050265 44461 1240 2281 47982 0.53% Red Bull 17 Red Bull RT_4NIPsMCY 20/02/13 02:21 Harlem Shake (Skydive Edition) - THE ENDSports 551 7313668 41490 1829 3149 46468 0.64% PCT Cobras 18 Red Bull il986P_ooEE 18/04/14 19:22 Mad Mike drifting Crown Range in New ZealandSports 539 5501745 41128 828 3030 44986 0.82% Red Bull 19 Red Bull L5N7R9Wbe_E 01/01/10 07:48 Travis Pastrana jumps 269 feet in rally car! (HD!)Sports 190 13285571 31606 784 5839 38229 0.29% Nitro Circus 20 Red Bull N_X_h8cCKcA 05/05/13 07:00 Jason Paul's Freerunning IllusionsSports 92 5458571 35992 837 581 37410 0.69% Red Bull 21 Red Bull XEUMwxzyDxI 05/12/14 22:46 Trials Motorcycle on a Roller Coaster - Red Bull Roller CoasterSports 252 11794791 32410 2429 923 35762 0.30% Red Bull 22 Red Bull SUyqakRMrxo 11/05/15 22:30 Paper Airplane World Championship - Red Bull Paper Wings 2015Sports 230 7433250 29857 3139 2265 35261 0.47% ThePaperAirplaneGuy 23 Red Bull raiFrxbHxV0 14/10/13 21:13 Red Bull Stratos FULL POV - Multi-Angle + Mission DataSports 324 5890486 28012 1094 3910 33016 0.56% Red Bull 24 Red Bull r-TCO2IdoTA 16/03/12 07:57 Felix Baumgartner's Test Jump - Red Bull StratosSports 332 12114514 20037 2547 8264 30848 0.25% Marie Lou 3M 25 Red Bull Y20CLumT2Sg 02/07/13 20:00 SÃ©bastien Loeb's Record Setting Pikes Peak Run - Full POVSports 187 5684173 23310 620 3268 27198 0.48% Creapro 26 Red Bull 8XlYXl111XI 02/10/14 18:55 Road to Rampage - The Final Destination - Ep. 6Sports 196 8296176 24405 1204 654 26263 0.32% Cut Media 27 Red Bull BB_KnqCXbcQ 21/05/12 21:02 BMX Full Loop Attempt - Red Bull Full Pipe part 3Sports 428 10435103 20389 3428 2107 25924 0.25% Red Bull 28 Red Bull mYfWzBh2KIw 18/03/16 14:35 Baseball Star Kris Bryant Pranks a College Team as â€˜The Transferâ€™Sports 230 5676722 23003 1398 1261 25662 0.45% Coby Persin 29 Red Bull nLH55rIjc-Y 01/07/14 21:15 Historic Bike Flip in FMX competition - Red Bull X-Fighters Madrid 2014Sports 200 6454126 22762 768 538 24068 0.37% Red Bull 30 Red Bull IHY8mol-v2A 31/07/08 15:42 Tricking battles and extreme Taekwondo - Red Bull Kick It 2013Sports 204 5237540 20790 749 1943 23482 0.45% INVINCIBLEWORLDWIDE 31 Red Bull LyTYCvFkldE 14/12/12 17:29 Red Bull Signature Series - Rampage 2012 FULL TV EPISODE 22Sports 630 6220642 20721 885 1342 22948 0.37% Red Bull 32 Red Bull Nzbq35hAXRQ 18/09/14 23:26 Building Slopestyle Mega Ramps - ULTRA HD 4K - Red Bull District RideSports 1121 6876998 20676 1603 452 22731 0.33% Cut Media 33 Red Bull 3iso2ntPD_A 17/05/14 00:00 Mexican Cave Drops - Through My Eyes - Part 3Music 433 5931084 18761 3019 767 22547 0.38% Red Bull 34 Red Bull 3_Io1DgObCs 28/10/10 20:08 Felix Baumgartner's Top FreefallsAutos & Vehicles 1 5003980 19118 645 2533 22296 0.45% Xdubai 35 Red Bull Z2YgNJMz12A 24/11/09 03:15 Lilou vs Cloud - Red Bull BC One 2009 FINAL ROUNDSports 251 6344468 14347 549 5053 19949 0.31% Strife.tv 36 Red Bull 37dxwVXZ384 17/10/12 01:28 Red Bull Rampage 2012 USA Full RecapSports 209 5853899 18373 605 744 19722 0.34% Red Bull 37 Red Bull BL-Tfyxc-_E 19/06/09 21:00 James Stewart heli shoot and backyard riding sessionSports 219 7325130 16073 433 2859 19365 0.26% AmericanMotocross 38 Red Bull VCqnQq86fkY 17/08/15 17:29 Supersonic Freefall - Red Bull Stratos CGISports 132 5457075 15927 555 2868 19350 0.35% Red Bull 39 Red Bull AbF6ZZqVMyk 09/10/12 21:19 FINALS Red Bull Rampage 2012 - Highest level of Mountain BikingSports 2539 5534492 16372 832 659 17863 0.32% Red Bull 40 Red Bull fzKY0ybobWY 22/07/14 01:19 First Ever FLOATING Freestyle Motocross Course - Red Bull X-Fighters Munich 2014Sports 565 7353131 15893 1078 294 17265 0.23% Monster Energy 41 Red Bull 2lpoxlHXmyY 06/10/12 21:00 Flying Bikini Babes in Hawaii | Who is JOB 4.0: S3E4Autos & Vehicles 63 4974764 14760 1854 600 17214 0.35% Red Bull 42 Red Bull VxBzvziYAdk 08/10/12 21:01 Red Bull Signature Series - Romaniacs 2012 FULL TV EPISODE 17Sports 722 6150767 15147 1105 920 17172 0.28% Enduro Kex 43 Red Bull MLejkyXbJlc 01/01/09 09:01 Robbie Maddison's 2008 New Year's Eve jumpSports 30 8311099 14687 409 1613 16709 0.20% Red Bull 44 Red Bull JGdRKIA2nzc 04/07/12 22:00 Red Bull Rampage 2012 Top 5 CrashesSports 216 5412427 13365 753 1161 15279 0.28% Ride or Die 45 Red Bull cXzNJ1kps9g 29/10/13 00:00 The Best Cliff Divers In the World Compete In ThailandSports 117 6309315 12459 1117 594 14170 0.22% Red Bull 46 Red Bull DexDu4FDEWM 20/12/10 00:52 Levi LaVallee's World Record Snowmobile Jump - Red Bull New Year No Limits 2010Sports 142 7936312 11954 340 1802 14096 0.18% Ferrari199 47 Red Bull s_SzUnkYcR4 28/07/12 01:00 96,000 ft Test Jump Success - Red Bull Stratos 2012Sports 275 6616240 9895 724 2133 12752 0.19% Red Bull 48 Red Bull jTChoOFb05w 26/09/13 21:13 Brazilian beach competition - Red Bull Roda de BolaSports 185 5025316 4490 538 1293 6321 0.13% Robin Roy 49 Red Bull RavPi16b4IQ 20/11/08 01:12 Truck backflip crash - Rhys Millen preps for Red Bull: New Year. No Limits.Sports 223 5671456 3091 517 770 4378 0.08% Red Bull 50 Red Bull uxYiWOJ59Vg 14/09/12 22:59 Driften mit dem Motorrad - Bernd HiemerSports 58 5398342 2977 369 625 3971 0.07% DaniRibalta AVERAGE 0.48%

Figure 5: Red Bull YouTube channel fifty most-engaging videos. YTDT Video List

REDBUll Facebook video list Best 50 taken by engagement

Count type post_id post_link post_message post_published_sql likes_count_fbcomments_count_fbreactions_count_fbshares_count_fbengagement_fbView count Percentage view/engagement 1 video 14226545351_10156351823110352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/101563518231103522015 - the year Kriss Kyle made everyone s jaws drop http://redbull.com/kaleidoscope #BestOf201528/12/15 18:30 56930 7539 57320 82837 147696 5132453 2.88% 2 video 14226545351_10156405012115352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156405012115352Dinghies gone wild. 29/12/15 20:37 83989 12341 84156 26073 122570 4103565 2.99% 3 video 14226545351_10156403155015352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156403155015352Insanity level= 29/12/15 07:02 69876 6784 70238 33990 111012 3911192 2.84% 4 video 14226545351_10156383542380352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156383542380352Ä°ki teker Ã¼stÃ¼nde sÄ±nÄ±r tanÄ±mÄ±yorlar! 23/12/15 18:24 75214 1726 75579 31309 108614 3180543 3.41% 5 video 14226545351_10156332950445352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156332950445352Â¡El himno de la gran final de Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos lo hacen Tiro De Gracia y tÃº! Visita http://win.gs/1Oi8vfX09/12/15 16:56 83333 2815 84182 21558 108555 6425954 1.69% 6 video 14226545351_10158674264210352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10158674264210352As hard as it looks. 16/04/17 15:02 62549 5287 69365 30655 105307 6292982 1.67% 7 video 14226545351_10156339601830352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156339601830352Boss mode ON. 12/12/15 16:00 66959 2913 67216 33044 103173 2599585 3.97% 8 video 14226545351_10156326269910352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156326269910352No biggie. 07/12/15 16:00 66404 5360 66597 26116 98073 2961891 3.31% 9 video 14226545351_10156400469550352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156400469550352Slip n slide. 28/12/15 16:00 64835 6938 64999 24873 96810 4686800 2.07% 10 video 14226545351_10156374042460352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156374042460352Is this the best Soapbox Race crash/reaction ever? Watch the full event from Holland with Dave at http://win.gs/1kcrCQ822/12/15 13:05 63312 6843 63660 25624 96127 4956911 1.94% 11 video 14226545351_10158709101455352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10158709101455352A slackline over a 120m drop at an altitude of 2700m. Because why not.19/04/17 12:59 58356 6856 70475 17581 94912 4847031 1.96% 12 video 14226545351_10156396317780352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156396317780352Stille Nacht war gestern... 27/12/15 09:00 61303 6623 61419 26770 94812 2452621 3.87% 13 video 14226545351_10156361197535352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156361197535352Slipping slideways. 20/12/15 16:00 63868 4641 64092 20365 89098 2765591 3.22% 14 video 14226545351_10156382797450352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156382797450352Travel through time. 26/12/15 11:00 67503 3176 67718 12424 83318 2892694 2.88% 15 video 14226545351_10156352642010352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156352642010352Cranberry fields... forever. 15/12/15 20:34 69609 4285 69758 8931 82974 4380056 1.89% 16 video 14226545351_10156349443690352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156349443690352 Ne pas regarder en bas ne pas regarder en bas... Regardez la vidÃ©o complÃ¨te de Danny MacAskill sur http://win.gs/1NZXNR4 !14/12/15 19:49 54929 2893 54941 18898 76732 3887770 1.97% 17 video 14226545351_10156326580190352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156326580190352 We re going into insane mode. 08/12/15 10:00 53064 7227 53227 15958 76412 2239461 3.41% 18 video 14226545351_10156378142495352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156378142495352Will he emerge from the surf? (On a bike). 22/12/15 16:00 49360 2534 49627 12789 64950 2244956 2.89% 19 video 14226545351_10156355551625352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156355551625352Baldâ€¦ #verleihtflÃ¼gel 16/12/15 19:40 48624 6630 48774 7779 63183 1884571 3.35% 20 video 14226545351_10156400894420352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156400894420352Nie ma Å›niegu moÅ¼e wiÄ™c czas na rower? 28/12/15 17:47 44990 2331 45201 11968 59500 1903961 3.13% 21 video 14226545351_10156357484665352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156357484665352Who s the king of the castle? 18/12/15 10:00 48141 1362 48251 8682 58295 2457877 2.37% 22 video 14226545351_10158070451025352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10158070451025352Full suspension required! 31/12/16 06:02 43705 2974 48030 6900 57904 2581889 2.24% 23 video 14226545351_10156382743605352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156382743605352Lols. 26/12/15 18:00 47829 3555 48010 5891 57456 2427884 2.37% 24 video 14226545351_10156339146755352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156339146755352Danny MacAskill semestrar pÃ¥ Gran Canaria. http://win.gs/1HYe2vB11/12/15 12:20 36447 2509 36681 17515 56705 1722060 3.29% 25 video 14226545351_10156332323980352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156332323980352ÎœÎ¹Î± Î±Ï€Î»Î® #epic Î²ÏŒÎ»Ï„Î± Î¼Îµ Ï„Î¿ Ï€Î¿Î´Î®Î»Î±Ï„Î¿. #DineiFtera 09/12/15 12:20 44093 3421 44159 7733 55313 2111346 2.62% 26 video 14226545351_10156411096760352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/101564110967603522015 oli tÃ¤ynnÃ¤ huikeita seikkailuita. Katso super-edit >> http://win.gs/1TrpLU031/12/15 13:44 40714 4803 40954 9505 55262 1305466 4.23% 27 video 14226545351_10156382842425352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156382842425352Real boys play with real toys. 24/12/15 16:00 47194 762 47297 5930 53989 1991301 2.71% 28 video 14226545351_10156373016420352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156373016420352Drop in! #mondaymotivation 21/12/15 09:35 44141 1140 44314 7107 52561 1653949 3.18% 29 video 14226545351_10156333611200352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156333611200352Hang in there. 09/12/15 21:24 47665 4578 47820 6 52404 3417558 1.53% 30 video 14226545351_10156386030800352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156386030800352This had to be 2015 s most extraordinary run - Aaron Gwin s win in Leogang after snapping his chain! Find out more at http://win.gs/1G5jJ2O #BestOf201524/12/15 13:30 37128 2903 37229 11540 51672 977321 5.29% 31 video 14226545351_10156400771935352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156400771935352Watch Drew Bezanson shred Joyride150 Indoor Bike Park to get you through this Monday.28/12/15 17:01 32745 2368 32882 10722 45972 1300701 3.53% 32 video 14226545351_10156332673280352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156332673280352Jump the hump. 10/12/15 11:00 35020 1720 35106 4856 41682 1526567 2.73% 33 video 14226545351_10156406994495352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156406994495352Non appena arriva la neve... 30/12/15 10:00 30279 2438 30357 7921 40716 977321 4.17% 34 video 14226545351_10156369162830352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156369162830352Det finns branta Ã¥k och sÃ¥ finns det hÃ¤r.. 20/12/15 14:10 31531 3018 31650 3760 38428 1312986 2.93% 35 video 14226545351_10156395090680352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156395090680352Make the dust fly. 27/12/15 16:00 31596 651 31650 4986 37287 1296511 2.88% 36 video 14226545351_10156354782175352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156354782175352En helt vanlig dag pÃ¥ jobbet. Se hela: http://win.gs/rwts_e5 16/12/15 14:38 30177 1441 30240 5050 36731 1414830 2.60% 37 video 14226545351_10156386407625352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156386407625352KÄ±ÅŸ lastikleri âœ“ 24/12/15 15:46 31766 1126 31820 2956 35902 2418079 1.48% 38 video 14226545351_10156372633990352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156372633990352Hit play. Itâ€™s unrailistic. 21/12/15 07:00 27772 3104 27828 4752 35684 1624781 2.20% 39 video 14226545351_10156405979230352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156405979230352The ol switcheroo. 30/12/15 01:48 28490 1201 28606 5492 35299 807780 4.37% 40 video 14226545351_10156411473600352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156411473600352Resolution: Say yes more. 31/12/15 15:59 31607 3403 31789 1 35193 15051120 0.23% 41 video 14226545351_10156401736980352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156401736980352The best/craziest/maddest course preview ever! See what happened at Rampage with Red Bull TV http://win.gs/1LiSbjm #BestOf201530/12/15 18:30 24743 2586 24988 7600 35174 1240737 2.83% 42 video 14226545351_10156345950690352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156345950690352Wie war euer Sonntagsausflug? #verleihtflÃ¼gel 13/12/15 17:45 28900 1054 28954 3799 33807 1703615 1.98% 43 video 14226545351_10156336322920352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156336322920352Rooftop (handle)bars. 10/12/15 21:30 28196 931 28283 3809 33023 888348 3.72% 44 video 14226545351_10156335542375352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156335542375352ÐŸÑ€Ð¾Ð±Ð°Ñ˜ Ð´Ð° Ð³Ð¾ Ð¸Ð·Ð³Ð»ÐµÐ´Ð°Ñˆ Ð²Ð¸Ð´ÐµÐ¾Ñ‚Ð¾ Ð±ÐµÐ· Ð´Ð° Ñ‚Ð¸ Ð¿Ð°Ð´Ð½Ðµ Ð²Ð¸Ð»Ð¸Ñ†Ð°Ñ‚Ð°... http://win.gs/1OhRxhB10/12/15 12:27 27230 585 27311 5058 32954 1795754 1.84% 45 video 14226545351_10156339000300352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156339000300352Beach vibes. 11/12/15 10:31 30545 2033 30607 1 32641 1954993 1.67% 46 video 14226545351_10156382585885352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156382585885352Abbiamo impacchettato questo video per voi ðŸ‘‰ win.gs/Buon_Natale23/12/15 12:07 26562 257 26632 5313 32202 2082269 1.55% 47 video 14226545351_10158686829500352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10158686829500352We bet you can t skip like this. 15/04/17 11:01 26767 1671 28301 1707 31679 3354972 0.94% 48 video 14226545351_10156350145040352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156350145040352Â¡60 segundos que te hacen sentir vivo! 14/12/15 23:56 25875 693 25979 4514 31186 1215335 2.57% 49 video 14226545351_10156369003595352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156369003595352Let s have some fun! #verleihtflÃ¼gel 20/12/15 13:11 25991 1581 26041 3345 30967 911472 3.40% 50 video 14226545351_10156332603580352https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156332603580352Caption competition time. Weâ€™ll kick things off with â€œUnrailâ€09/12/15 16:00. Now itâ€™s your turnâ€¦17197 3600 17248 10091 30939 980183 3.16% AVERAGE 2.72%

Figure 6: Red Bull Facebook page fifty most-engaging videos: Netvizz page data.

REDBUllTV Facebook video list Best 50 taken by engagement

Count type post_id post_link post_messagepost_published_sql likes_count_fbcomments_count_fbreactions_count_fbshares_count_fbengagement_fbView Percentage view/engagement 1 video 1588665851410172_1801904623419626https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1801904623419626OMG. 03/10/16 14:09 467773 58487 557103 1420377 2035967 104531902 1.95% 2 video 1588665851410172_1771810973095658https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1771810973095658Yes Danny Hart did it again. Watch now the replay from Downhill UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Finals on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/msa08/08/16 12:02 63196 6511 68017 27442 101970 5435812 1.88% 3 video 1588665851410172_1759334774343278https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1759334774343278Alfredo Gomez Cantero on his way to catch Charmander. Red Bull Romaniacs is the world s toughest Hard Enduro rally. The five-day marathon is underway with Spanish success on the prologue stage. Watch next week on Red Bull TV.13/07/16 16:01 59026 4750 64475 30077 99302 4593014 2.16% 4 video 1588665851410172_1778879279055494https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1778879279055494Throw it down. Watch the replay from Red Bull Joyride on Red Bull TV.12/09/16 12:02 70515 2819 77866 16990 97675 2107083 4.64% 5 video 1588665851410172_1647441338865956https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1647441338865956Brandon Semenuk TORCHED his run at Rampage.16/10/15 19:51 28805 2322 28932 57685 88939 3432837 2.59% 6 video 1588665851410172_1661276120815811https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1661276120815811Knock yourself out.02/12/15 14:53 20604 10877 20677 55986 87540 2862591 3.06% 7 video 1588665851410172_1653283868281703https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1653283868281703Go hard or... 06/11/15 12:51 33024 3486 33135 45670 82291 2879675 2.86% 8 video 1588665851410172_1733131566963599https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1733131566963599TBT. 19/05/16 14:30 43320 2045 47206 22992 72243 2328510 3.10% 9 video 1588665851410172_1806330812977007https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1806330812977007That smile on his face. ðŸ‘Œ12/10/16 12:03 38898 4238 44301 19578 68117 4073540 1.67% 10 video 1588665851410172_1716268898649866https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1716268898649866The rhythm of James Stewart.12/04/16 16:03 46509 2140 48241 16029 66410 3451923 1.92% 11 video 1588665851410172_1751106371832785https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1751106371832785Front flip flair! 24/06/16 23:26 48829 1321 53711 8912 63944 2077568 3.08% 12 video 1588665851410172_1680616222215134https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1680616222215134Les TWINS Organization goin up.26/01/16 11:07 38399 2472 38558 14859 55889 3272770 1.71% 13 video 1588665851410172_1814337458843009https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1814337458843009Marvin Musquin vs. Ryan Dungey getting after it at Red Bull Straight Rhythm.23/10/16 05:29 37937 1301 40589 12807 54697 2919331 1.87% 14 video 1588665851410172_1823777877898967https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1823777877898967Hold on to your logs!07/11/16 16:16 23720 6432 28608 18932 53972 10562116 0.51% 15 video 1588665851410172_1710138562596233https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1710138562596233Throwback Thursday.31/03/16 16:03 18660 1890 20010 28257 50157 1977637 2.54% 16 video 1588665851410172_1748348028775286https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1748348028775286Let s twist again! 18/06/16 17:57 31538 1307 34319 13387 49013 2763265 1.77% 17 video 1588665851410172_1757557854520970https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1757557854520970Nicely done. Watch the replay from Downhill UCI MTB Finals on Red Bull TV.09/07/16 17:04 34360 1265 36934 8235 46434 1282157 3.62% 18 video 1588665851410172_1715690518707704https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1715690518707704Aaron Gwin flying down the course!10/04/16 18:00 26641 2255 27778 15799 45832 3866747 1.19% 19 video 1588665851410172_1674931889450234https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1674931889450234One hell of a bumpy ride.10/01/16 13:49 27992 2972 28033 14405 45410 2275813 2.00% 20 video 1588665851410172_1815915712018517https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1815915712018517A world without gravity.25/10/16 16:23 32446 990 36264 7931 45185 1039906 4.35% 21 video 1588665851410172_1735015250108564https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1735015250108564A little dirt never hurt. Watch Red Bull Hare Scramble this Sunday May 29 on Red Bull TV.23/05/16 10:32 31853 1400 33912 9394 44706 1735261 2.58% 22 video 1588665851410172_1729172934026129https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1729172934026129On fire. 12/05/16 11:29 15553 1407 17203 22995 41605 940957 4.42% 23 video 1588665851410172_1744632929146796https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1744632929146796Going for a bumpy ride.10/06/16 17:30 25296 3716 32584 5037 41337 1311428 3.15% 24 video 1588665851410172_1773635272913228https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1773635272913228This is Red Bull Hare Scramble. ðŸ¤˜ The Erzbergrodeo s crown jewel the Hare Scramble is 35km of nightmarish Hard Enduro racing that has riders charging out of the bottom of Austria s biggest iron mine. The 22nd running of this historic race looks to be the toughest yet. Watch Red Bull Signature Series now on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/2bbMxTb17/08/16 10:21 27093 988 29148 6640 36776 1351596 2.72% 25 video 1588665851410172_1829097950700293https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1829097950700293Red Bull TV with Danny MacAskill.17/11/16 17:07 13949 1466 15753 18654 35873 1960810 1.83% 26 video 1588665851410172_1789683057975116https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1789683057975116Point of Vroom. Watch Ride: United now on Red Bull TV.12/09/16 16:01 22850 780 24500 4514 29794 1538237 1.94% 27 video 1588665851410172_1648559712087452https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1648559712087452Thereâ€™s fast. And then thereâ€™s Gee Atherton.21/10/15 03:02 9246 3036 9277 16581 28894 1270021 2.28% 28 video 1588665851410172_1837483723195049https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1837483723195049Watch the Red Bull BC One World Finals live from Japan on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/WatchRedBullBCOne02/12/16 15:10 12229 6030 16547 5748 28325 835040 3.39% 29 video 1588665851410172_1705226856420737https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1705226856420737Sound of the Police.27/03/16 23:57 14766 881 15433 11630 27944 1278410 2.19% 30 video 1588665851410172_1831227420487346https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1831227420487346Wait what? ðŸ˜² 21/11/16 12:36 12632 2999 14340 10394 27733 3516456 0.79% 31 video 1588665851410172_1723316594611763https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1723316594611763That was indeed a solid line.27/04/16 16:02 15559 2955 16476 8193 27624 2322535 1.19% 32 video 1588665851410172_1895146584095429https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1895146584095429Red Bull TV with Erik Lundberg.10/03/17 12:09 18249 806 21980 4593 27379 2111859 1.30% 33 video 1588665851410172_1756095651333857https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1756095651333857Insane more insane Red Bull X-Fighters.06/07/16 13:20 11271 427 12258 14471 27156 1557837 1.74% 34 video 1588665851410172_1806528552957233https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1806528552957233Get stoked. The 11th Edition of Red Bull Rampage goes down this Friday on Red Bull TV! redbull.tv/rampage11/10/16 22:00 17563 1666 19232 6093 26991 1008354 2.68% 35 video 1588665851410172_1769002053376550https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1769002053376550Always push further than your limits. Born with a leg that has severe deformation Clement Zannini must use a prosthesis in order to walk. But he doesn t let that stand in the way of doing what he loves and he pursues skateboarding with passion and commitment as strong as anyone s. Watch Out of Frame on Red Bull TV now.03/08/16 16:02 12890 683 14299 11827 26809 915455 2.93% 36 video 1588665851410172_1782810278662394https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/178281027866239465 meters. Laso Schaller tries to break the world high diving record. Watch the next episode of Ultimate Rush now on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/2c3M7wj05/09/16 09:03 14177 2713 16153 6961 25827 1003898 2.57% 37 video 1588665851410172_1807403866203035https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1807403866203035He got this. ðŸ‘Š 17/10/16 16:15 19637 755 21465 2959 25179 834825 3.02% 38 video 1588665851410172_1731540470456042https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1731540470456042So smooth Nyjah Huston.15/05/16 21:33 19968 552 21118 2304 23974 1071157 2.24% 39 video 1588665851410172_1911187015824719https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1911187015824719Watch some of the worldâ€™s best skateboarders shred this bowl to pieces live from the Vans Park Series on Red Bull TV. http://win.gs/VansParkSeriesLive08/04/17 16:20 12395 2475 16761 3497 22733 1654621 1.37% 40 video 1588665851410172_1839465889663499https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/183946588966349905/12/16 16:43 16760 508 18856 3182 22546 2690200 0.84% 41 video 1588665851410172_1770017579941664https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1770017579941664Rough. Approaching its third decade on World Cup circuit Mont-Sainte-Anne is the most historic stop on the tour. Last year s races were marked by rains which greatly affected the course s difficulty and weather could play a role again in 2016. Watch UCI MTB WC this Saturday and Sunday August 6 - 7 on Red Bull TV.04/08/16 16:31 16643 1064 17871 3571 22506 1921581 1.17% 42 video 1588665851410172_1663634530579970https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1663634530579970Sea sand and motocross.10/12/15 11:24 11389 1095 11425 9846 22366 1955005 1.14% 43 video 1588665851410172_1906478059628948https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1906478059628948Watch the kickoff event of the 2017 Crankworx Quest for the Triple Crown LIVE from Rotorua New Zealand on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/2nvn7Ed01/04/17 04:30 12658 2405 16296 3108 21809 1515077 1.44% 44 video 1588665851410172_1729192177357538https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1729192177357538Ok bye. 12/05/16 17:07 12331 1667 13751 5306 20724 857394 2.42% 45 video 1588665851410172_1889868701289884https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1889868701289884Watch Juste Debout LIVE from Paris France on Red Bull TV: http://win.gs/2lSzOcW05/03/17 20:45 9070 3735 12969 3449 20153 1350740 1.49% 46 video 1588665851410172_1660715120871911https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1660715120871911Can t stop won t stop.30/11/15 14:23 9573 1224 9594 9327 20145 2195468 0.92% 47 video 1588665851410172_1746016059008483https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1746016059008483Drop the Mik. 13/06/16 18:35 15815 618 16982 2136 19736 923779 2.14% 48 video 1588665851410172_1728889834054439https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1728889834054439Who walks down stairs anyways?11/05/16 16:00 12298 871 13118 5717 19706 530782 3.71% 49 video 1588665851410172_1788173554792733https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1788173554792733All the way down. Watch UCI MTB World Championship this Sunday September 11 on Red Bull TV.09/09/16 09:32 13751 1387 14517 3218 19122 1175944 1.63% 50 video 1588665851410172_1725410501069039https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1725410501069039What a Sunday. 01/05/16 21:17 11570 431 12310 6367 19108 543162 3.52% AVERAGE 2.26%

Figure 7: Red Bull TV Facebook page fifty most-engaging videos: Netvizz page data.

Type of sports YouTube fifty top engaged Red Bull fifty top engaged Red Bull TV fifty top engaged Count Sponsored Athletes Sport Caption Publisher video id Tags/links engagement % Sport Caption video link Tags/links engagement % Sport Caption video link Tags/links engagement % 1 Adventure 2 Aerobatic Flying 3 Air Race 4 Alpine Ski 5 B.A.S.E. Jumping Felix Baumgartner's supersonic freefall from 128k' - Mission HighlightsRed Bull FHtvDA0W34IRed Bull TV 0.81% 6 Baseball 7 Beach Volleyball 8 Bike 9 BMX 2015 - the year Kriss Kyle made everyone s jaws drop http://redbull.com/kaleidoscope #BestOf2015https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156351823110352RedBull.com + Kiss Kyle + # 2.88% Next level insane Insanity level= https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156403155015352 2.84% 10 Cliff Diving 11 Climbing 12 Cycling 13 Drifting Red Bull Romaniacs 2016 Alfredo Alfredo Gomez Cantero Gomez on his way to catch Cantero Charmander. Red Bull Enduro.mp4 Red Bull Romaniacs is the Romaniacs 14 Enduro No biggie. — with Alfredo Gomez https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156326269910352 Alfredo Gomez 3.31% world's toughest Hard https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1759334774343278GoPro 2.16% 360° of Motocross Comment: Knock yourself out. https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1661276120815811/?type=2&theaterRed Bull TV 3.06% Hard Enduro 2015 Comment: Go hard or… https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1653283868281703/?type=2&theaterRed Bull TV 2.86% Comment: TBT. https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1733131566963599/?type=2&theaterRed Bull TV 3.10% 15 eSports 16 F1 17 FIFA 18 Fitness Training 19 FMB Red Bull District Ride İki teker üstünde sınır tanımıyorlar! https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156383542380352/?type=2&theater 3.41% FMX Boss mode ON. — with Tom Pagès and Red Bull Tom Pagès 20 FMX Motorsports. https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156339601830352/?type=2&theaterRed Bull Motorsports 3.97% 21 Football 22 Freerunning 23 Freeski 24 Freestyle Soccer 25 Kayaking 26 Kiteboarding 27 League of Legends 28 Moto2 29 Moto3 30 MotoGP Red Bull Hare Scramble 2016 31 Motorsports Red Bull Rampage From Start to FinishRed Bull Hv_DRJZZ2qIRed Bull TV 1.53% As hard as it looks. — at Erzbergrodeo. https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10158674264210352 Location 1.67% The rhythm of James 32 MotoX UCI Mountain Bike World Stewart. https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1716268898649866James Stewart 1.92% Cup - Downhill Finals Red Bull Bike Yes, Danny Hart did it Location again. Watch now the Danny Hart 33 MTB Downhill Mountain Biking in the Wilds of AfricaRed Bull ckpwSAv5we8Red Bull TV 0.92% replay from Downhill UCI https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1771810973095658Red Bull TV 1.88%

Throw it down. Watch the replay from Red Bull Joyride on Red Bull TV. https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1778879279055494/?type=2&theater 4.64%

Brandon Semenuk TORCHED his run at Brandon Rampage. https://www.facebook.com/1588665851410172/posts/1647441338865956Semenuk 2.59% 34 News 35 Offroad 36 Paragliding 37 Parkour 38 Rally Travis Pastrana jumps 269 feet in rally car! (HD!)Red Bull L5N7R9Wbe_ERedBull.com 0.50% 39 Rally Raid 40 Rallycross 41 Running 42 Sailing 43 Skateboarding 44 Skiing 45 Skydiving Red Bull Airlines 2016 Jan Roose -

That smile on his face. ! Athlete — with Jaan Roose - Comment: 46 Slacklining Athlete. https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1806330812977007/?type=2&theaterRed Bull TV 1.67% 47 Smash Bros 48 Snow The Art of FLIGHT | Official Trailer Red Bull kh29_SERH0YRed Bull TV 0.67% 49 Snowboarding 50 Snowmobile Lights Out Dave 51 Sopabox Is this the best Soapbox Race crash/reaction ever? https://www.facebook.com/14226545351/posts/10156374042460352Red Bull TV 1.94% 52 Speedriding 53 Street Fighter 54 Superbike 55 Supercross 56 Surfing Sewer Surfing with Poopies | Who is JOB 3.0: S2E6Red Bull lotgqd7FZKs Red Bull TV 1.67% Red Bull TV 57 Trialbiking Danny MacAskill's Imaginate Red Bull Sv3xVOs7_NoFeature on video 0.62% Danny MacAskill - "Way Back Home"Red Bull Cj6ho1-G6twRed Bull TV 0.98% Danny MacAskill - EpecuÃ©n - 2014Red Bull PiF5HHkHvX0Red Bull TV 0.61% 58 Trials 59 Triathlon 60 Wakeboarding 61 Windsurfing 62 Wingsuit Flying 63 WRC 64 Mixed The Athlete Machine - Red Bull KlugeRed Bull M0jmSsQ5ptw 0.50% 65 Dinghy Dinghies gone wild. https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156405012115352/?type=2&theater 2.99% Batalla de los Gallos: Lata parlante.mov Red Bull Batalla de los ¡El himno de la gran final de Red Bull Batalla de los Gallos Gallos lo hacen Tiro De Gracia y tú! Trio de Garcia 68 Pranks Visita http://win.gs/1Oi8vfX https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156332950445352/?type=2&theaterRed Bull TV 1.69% Best of Crashed Ice 2015 69 Crashed Ice Slip 'n' slide. https://www.facebook.com/redbull/videos/vb.14226545351/10156400469550352/?type=2&theater 2.07% Concurs de Castells 2016 70 Castel OMG. https://www.facebook.com/RedBullTV/videos/vb.1588665851410172/1801904623419626/?type=2&theater 1.95%

Figure 8: Cross-platform type of sport of the ten most-engaging videos

Red Bull Facebook page Red Bull TV Facebook page Date Date Country Country Count 18/04/17 18/04/17 1 Unites States 6851159 Brazil 197733 2 India 4493402 Mexico 190037 3 Mexico 3295606 United States 181047 4 Brazil 2988616 Italy 77814 5 France 2243128 United Kingdom 76928 6 United Kingdom 1820762 France 73920 7 Germany 1487744 Peru 70581 8 Colombia 1340338 Colombia 68417 9 Indonesia 1298277 Spain 54409 10 Argentinia 1280099 Chile 53304 11 Italy 1144866 India 52850 12 Egypt 1124161 Germany 43790 13 Chile 1110673 Argentinia 39349 14 Australia 1013705 Philippines 37172 15 Turkey 979226 Canada 34415 16 Pakistan 758665 Australia 32715 17 Peru 742906 Thailand 28874 18 Canada 722960 Poland 24159 19 Malaysia 638663 Portugal 23475 20 Spain 607359 Ecuador 22558 21 Venezuela 531209 Indonesia 19744 22 Philippines 521518 Egypt 18173 23 Thailand 396927 Malaysia 17583 24 Austria 388508 Viet Nam 17380 25 Portugal 379941 Austria 16287 26 Ecuador 377579 Morocco 14404 27 Poland 376108 Pakistan 13840 28 Morocco 297700 Turkey 13546 29 Czech Republic 278158 Japan 12975 30 Belgium 274359 Belgium 12737 31 Netherlands 269031 Netherlands 12289 32 Algeria 258866 Costa Rica 11732 33 Romania 244915 Czech Republic 11388 34 United Arab Emirates 221699 Greece 10835 35 Serbia 212163 Algeria 10638 36 Switzerland 206708 Iraq 10526 37 South Africa 203728 Venezuela 10285 38 New Zeland 198008 Switzerland 10162 39 Hungary 196048 United Arab Emirates 10066 40 Japan 195388 Tunisia 9246 41 Tunisia 192165 Romania 9159 42 Saudi Arabia 187585 TW 8736 43 Greece 185559 Saudi Arabia 8429 44 Denmark 182136 New Zeland 8212 45 Sweden 172709 Korea Republic of 7489 SUM 42891030 SUM 1689408 Red Bull Facebook Page Red Bull TV Facebook page

8000000 250000 6000000 200000 150000 4000000 100000 2000000 50000 0 0

Figure 9: Fans per country of Red Bull and Red Bull TV Facebook pages, Netvizz page data