Steal the formula behind Red Bull’s short form branded content

Welcome back to The Activation, where we breakdown branded worlds across sports and entertainment.

Our aim, to make you the smartest person in the room when it comes to sports and entertainment sponsorship activation.

Brought to you by End Product.

Rich Johnson

It doesn’t matter if you care about the sport. It doesn’t matter if you even know what’s happening at first.

You’re pulled in, and before you realise it, you’ve watched a 45-second challenge that racks up millions of views.

The secret? Red Bull doesn’t act like a brand. They act like a creator.

Branded content is now the backbone to most successful partnerships.

But most of it is still underperforming.

Sorry to say this but most is too slow, too brand-first, and too forgettable.

Lacking purpose and propped up by paid spend.

Then there are brands like Red Bull, who have turned simple ideas into must-watch creator-level entertainment.

Everyone knows Red Bull are part drinks company part content marketing powerhouse, but do you know why their content works so well?

There are 4 lessons Red Bull nails every time that you should steal.

Each lesson is accompanied with an example from a different sport showing this can apply to any rights-holder and brand.

You fans demand it. The platforms demand it. Your partners (whether brand or rights-holder side) demand it.

A great format is the backbone of every successful piece of branded short-form content.

Outside of the ‘WOW’ stunts they are well known for, Red Bull use a series of repeatable formats across their branded content executions such as:

Versus: e.g Footballers vs an F1 car or Runners vs Bikes

Levels: e.g skiing the rail or easy to impossible or accuracy challenges

Ambitious set pieces: e.g Crazy cricket target practice

Simple. Instantly clear. No filler.

That clarity is what makes people stay.

But here’s the hidden layer all Red Bull content has a high share factor and save factor.

IMPORTANT: I talk about the Share Factor and Save Factor of content all the time.

On today’s platforms, those signals are gold. Shares and saves are the strongest indicators to the algorithm that your content is worth amplifying.

And they’re exactly what most branded activations ignore.

What Red Bull has done brilliantly is engineer formats that people want to share and save.

That’s why they’ve become unignorable.

Their short-form, challenge-based formats are instantly recognisable and repeatable, the kind of branded content people actually trade with friends.

👉 Action step: When ideating and reviewing activation plans think, “are we truly making killer format we could become known for’

Most branded content tries to frontload the “wow” with an overhyped intro. Red Bull does the opposite.

Red Bull flips that. In this a tug of war between Rugby players and a car, the jeopardy escalates naturally:

This sequencing is deliberate - the template is used across a ton of Red Bull short form challenge content.

They open what i call a ‘curiosity loop’ in the first 2 seconds (“what’s going to happen?”) and this acts as a super hook for the content.

and they deliver on that promise within 40–60 seconds.

The psychology here is crucial: viewers don’t feel tricked.

They get a payoff exactly when their attention is about to drop.

👉 Action step: Build curiosity with a clear hook, then deliver wow moments in intervals. Keep viewers guessing, but never waiting too long.

Red Bull’s best videos don’t rely on voiceovers, long intros, or branded chatter.

Here is a great recent example, a badminton challenge with no speaking at all.

Like so many of their videos they are language-agnostic.

That means the same 45-second video can hit in São Paulo, Seoul, or San Francisco.

And it’s also super important when the majority of social content is watched without sound.

Visual storytelling carries the load: simple text overlays, useful animations, clear locations.

Compare that to a recent video (redacted as I don’t enjoy calling out hard working content teams) from a global football club and a global sponsor. It opened with:

“Welcome to the [product] challenge! Today, Player A, B, and C will…”

The action didn’t start until 20 seconds in. By then? You’ve scrolled.

Result: just 116K views vs. Red Bull’s 2 million views in the example above.

👉 Action step: Audit your intros. If a fan can’t understand the content in silence, in under 3 seconds, cut it down. Your audience isn’t just your core fans, it’s the entire feed.

This is the hardest truth in activation: most sponsors still want the brand front and centre. But the fans don’t care.

Red Bull proves that when you lead with entertainment, the brand rides along invisibly but more powerfully. You’re remembered for delivering joy, not for delivering a logo.

And you can tell their athletes have full buy in.

Its why you can get them to do crazy stuff like this and so much of Red Bull’s content gets sourced and provided for by talent, like this.

And that’s exactly how you solve one of the industry’s biggest pain points: partners who don’t know how to activate their rights.

Give them a model where the entertainment is the activation, and suddenly the brand looks sharper, fresher, and fan-first.

👉 Action step: Reframe the conversation with partners: “Fans don’t want branded content. They want content worth watching and when we give them that, your brand gets the halo.”

Get this right, and you don’t just make better content, you solve sponsorship’s biggest headaches:

When you combine them, you solve one of partnership activations biggest headaches, content that organically earns attention over and over again instead of buying it.

Bryson’s hole in one challenge was a viral hit last year, now he’s got a new iteration with brand sponsor Underdog.

Central to the content is an easy to understand daily format, which will also keep appearing on engaged fans feeds.

We created Chelsea’s most engaged piece of branded content ever for William Hill, and core to it was opening with a curiosity loop.

An obvious open would have been “Hi guys it’s David Alorka welcome to XYZ, I’m here with ABC and William Hill”.

Instead there is a feeling of “am I meant to be seeing this?”

(PS: If you want some record breaking content for yourselves drop me a DM: [email protected])

I mentioned earlier Red Bull took a creator first approach, here is it in action.

Dude Perfect regularly execute this ‘easy to impossible’ format and it’s one that anyone around the world can watch and understand immediately.

Did Dude Perfect do this format type first or Red Bull? Who cares, it works.

How do you make a heat pump entertaining? Just ask Thomas Muller.

A prime example of the entertainment is the activation, and the brand, in this case Viessmann Climate Solutions looks sharp and relevant.

Of course not everyone has a Thomas Muller (Lucky Vancouver Whitecaps!) but he even says in the script “people want emotion not facts” and it’s truly sage advice.

You're terrified viewers won't understand the brand connection, so you front-load explanations at the expense of engagement.

What you do: "Welcome to the challenge! Today we're partnering with [brand] to test our players' skills in this exciting new format..."

What works: Jump straight into compelling action. Trust the format to communicate value and the viewers to get the concept (if it’s strong enough).

You lack confidence that content can carry brand value without heavy-handed messaging.

What you do: Multiple brand mentions, logo placement, product integration, sponsor callouts

What works: Subtle integration that doesn't interrupt entertainment flow

The Reality Check: Would you watch your content if it wasn't featuring your brand/athletes? If not, more branding won't save it.

Your content is designed for campaign objectives, not platform performance.

What you do: Optimise for brand recall, message delivery, campaign KPIs

What works: Optimise for sustained attention, shareability, organic amplification

The Algorithm Truth: Content that holds viewers gets platform amplification. Content that loses viewers gets buried, regardless of media spend.

You invest in high production while neglecting fundamental engagement principles.

What you do: Professional setups, multiple camera angles, polished graphics, comprehensive coverage

What works: Simple formats with clear jeopardy that maintain tension throughout

The Insight: Red Bull's most viral content often looks like it could be shot on a phone or pocket gimbal (because a lot of it is). The format creates the engagement, not the production quality.

▶ NFL Nike Rivalries vignettes: Nicely animated (possible AI use) custom vignettes for each Nike Rivalries kit - received well by fans

▶ Moet Chandon, Dobel Tequila and IHG hospitality suites are all at the centre of the US Opens extra ‘sceny’ vibe this year (this might command its own breakdown in the future)

▶ Nike Running made training feel like a movie: In my opinion over produced ‘mini doc’ style series often miss the mark and can be really overindulgent and dull. This couldn’t be further from the truth with this Nike Running piece, documenting a training block with Keely Hodgkinson and her Swoosh team-mates.

If you have any feedback regarding what you would find valuable for us to breakdown, respond to this email to message us directly.

For example, would you like to see the ‘Breakdowns’ and ‘Hidden Gem activations’ split out across separate emails? Let me know.

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See you next time,

Rich Johnson