Penshire Media

UPDATE:  Red Bull updated their website and made it a lot more web 2.0 friendly.  Go visit their site now at Redbull.com.  Blow is a screen show of their new site:

Here is my origional post (before they updated their website):

I am a big fan of Red Bull…. actually a huge fan, but I have a very serious question for Red Bull. 

WHERE IS YOUR BLOG????!!!

Its not at redbull.com/blog, not at redbullusa.com/blog and it definitely is not at redbullblog.com. 

I can't even find it when I type “Red Bull Blog” into Google.  The top result is a random free blogger.com blog.  <I bet he gets millions of free view of people looking for the real thing – only to have them drop out of the blog within 1 min>

With all that being said, I can still say that I love the drink, the brand, and the promotions / events, and athletes they sponsor. I wish I had a Red Bull in my hands right now…

Take a look at this video below for example and just imagine the dialog of coming up with this concept (this is not the actual dialog):

• Red Bull Rep # 1: “Travis Pastrana loves to sky dive”
• Red Bull Rep # 2: “Yes”
• Red Bull Rep # 1: “Lets do a skydiving event”
• Red Bull Rep # 2: “That would be cool, its quite a rush and we could get some good publicity”

 After they decided on the event…..

• Red Bull Rep # 1: “How can you easily die from skydiving?”
• Red Bull Rep # 2: Jump without a parachute”
• Red Bull Rep # 1: “PERFECT! Lets get our million dollar athlete to drink a Red Bull, then skydive without a parachute!!!”
• Red Bull Rep # 1: “YES!!”

I feel bad for his Travis’s mother.  My parents would get nervous at hockey games when I was wearing over $1k worth of hockey equipment.  I can’t even imagine what they would do if I said I was going to jump out of an airplane without a parachute.

Watch this video:

Pretty crazy huh?

Just do a random search for Red Bull in YouTube and look what else comes up.  There are some amazing events, and concepts.  All pushing sport and competition to their limits.

With all this said, I have a question for Red Bull.  WHERE IS YOUR BLOG?  I want to easily know about all these record setting and crazy events and promotions!!

So where is the Red Bull Blog?

An answer from someone who works at Red Bull might be, “We have a blog, take a look at it on our official Red Bull site. (Go to Redbull.com and try to find the blog, and once you do ask yourself if it is easy to read, or ask yourself how often they update it. (The answer is: no it isn’t, and you cant even tell).  Then ask the Google spiders if they can find it. (The answer is no, and  Google Spiders can find everything!).

Its almost impossible to find the blog in their Flash covered site.  I am not knocking the site.  I love the site, but they need a REAL blog that can be easily found by everyone, easily read by Google, and easy to subscribe to.

Red Bull…. You need to do better.  Well, you don’t NEED to, but you should, you really should.  You are missing out on millions and millions of yearly views each year.  It would cost less to run a blog than it would to create and develop any small TV campaign you run.

Don’t you know any of the basic concepts of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?  There is no substitution for content!  With billions of searches each day on Google, Red Bull is missing out on thousands (maybe millions) of daily views on their unique content.  Imagine getting thousands of daily views for your product, your events, your brand for almost no money (just an upgraded squarespace.com, wordpress.com or blogger.com account and a URL redirect would be able to handle that!).

All you would need is to have one central Red Bull Blog with daily updates with exclusive video content about various events around the world with some of the worlds best athletes in some of the worlds best locations.  Red Bull already has everything I just mentioned, but it is hard to find.

Below is a video about a recent promo Red Bull did in Vegas:

I would subscribe to the blog and I am sure millions of others would too.  Even if they didn’t subscribe, they would find the blog content millions of times per day when they would type in various keywords of popular athletes, events and promotions into Google.

I do not think that Red Bull realizes the gem that they are sitting on.  Yes many of their unique Red Bull URLs have exclusive content, but its hard to find any of this content in Google because most of their sites are flash based.

I really want to know why they don’t have a centralized Red Bull Blog.  They have so many unique athletes, events, competitions, promotions, and stories, but no where to view all of it.

Red Bull Executives might say “Its tough because we have events all over the world and it would be hard to manage it all”.

No it wouldn’t.  Its 2008.  Get some freelance videographers to go to your events, or even random people with a video camera to submit video content each day to one secure video portal that only the Red Bull Blog manger can access. Red Bull already does something like this with their Red Bull Rough Cuts website (I just signed up  - and you should too!).

Then the Red Bull Blog manger can review and use this uploaded video to create 2 min clips of what is going on in the world of Red Bull, throw up a few comments, and there it is!  Millions of views of your product, and your events at almost no cost!

Exclusive video that people all over the world can view and subscribe to! Its as easy as jumping out of an airplane with no parachute, er…

Well then the Red Bull Executives might say “We are a global company, it will be tough to translate each blog post into the appropriate language”.  

No it wouldn’t!  There is all types of software out there that will automatically translate the content of the blog.  Just have a flag on the top right of your blog with a drop down into each country that you have a decent presence in.  When the viewer clicks on the appropriate flag, the site will automatically be translated.

Or just create and English version of the Red Bull Blog and see what type of traffic it gets and decide to go from there.

Then the Executives might say “We don’t want to post all of our video content on YouTube, we want  monetize that unique video content”!

Good thought, but not a valid point! If Red Bull is worried about leaking exclusive content they shouldn’t.  They should realize they can easily put a few 2 min long clips to promote or review an event, and then keep all the good content for when they want to create a DVD or documentary, etc.  When they are ready to release a DVD they can link to it in the post, or itunes, etc. and the millions of subscribers will be instantly notified about it.

Ever hear of the Cloverfield effect on YouTube?

With so much unique content, and video clips, there NEEDS be a blog that hosts it all.  I am not asking for much, just some behind the scenes videos and text content of some of their record breaking events and maybe even a calendar that describes upcoming events.  That’s it.  I would subscribe and I am sure millions of others would too.

Here are a few of my favorite Red Bull Videos I found on YouTube:

Here are a few official Red Bull URLs that I found by looking quickly:

1. http://www.redbull.com
2. http://www.redbullusa.com
3. http://www.redbullflugtagusa.com/
4. http://www.redbullartofcan.com/
5. http://www.redbullcopilot.com/
6. http://www.teamredbull.com/
7. http://www.redbullu.com/
8. http://www.redbullillume.com/
9. http://www.redbullusgrandprix.com/
10. http://www.redbullbigtune.com/
11. http://www.redbulldriversearch.com/
12. http://www.redbullsnowboarding.com/
13. http://www.redbullsoapboxusa.com/
14. http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com
15. http://redbullskateboarding.com/
16. http://www.redbullstreetstyle.com/
17. http://www.redbullascension.com/
18. http://redbullhouse.com/
19. http://www.redbullroughcuts.com/
20. http://www.redbullheavymetal.com/
21. http://www.redbullartsehcro.com/
22. http://www.redbullairforce.com/
23. http://www.redbulllastmanstanding.com/
24. http://www.redbullspam.com/
25. http://www.redbulldivideandconquer.com/
26. http://www.redbullbeatriders.com/
27. http://redbullfuelandfury.com/
28. http://www.redbullempireofdirt.com/
29. http://www.redbull5x.com/
30. http://www.redbullonthemove.com/
31. http://www.redbullbedroomjam.com/

All of these sites have great video and text content.  Why not put it all into one Blog?
 
Wouldn't it be reasonable and make a lot of sence to organize all of that amazing unique content and make a Red Bull Blog?  Someone who enjoys Red Bull Snowboarding may very well be interested in the Red Bull Soap Box, but would never know about it unless they randomly stumbled upon it in Google.

Any fan of Red Bull would love to be able to subscribe to their blog to keep updated with their favorite sports, athletes, product and just watch interesting events, clips and be notified when a cool event is coming near them.

Check out some of the Top Red Bull Athletes:

• AJ Allmendinger
• Amanda Beard
• Steve Bonsey
• Travis Pastrana
• Ryan Sheckler
• Shaun White

Oh Red Bull.  You have a global product, you have exclusive content, you have amazing promotions, you have record breaking events, and athletes that are willing to kill them selves for an adrenalin rush.

Google and I want to know, where is your blog is?  How can we and the rest of the world stay updated with you?

Thanks,

Scott

Side Note: Not only would a universal Red Bull Blog be great for Red Bull sales and building out the brand even more but it would be great for every single sport that Red Bull promotes.