There’s a proven recipe: Take one product, find a well-known pop song, mix well by laying image and sound tracks, and voilà! – it’s an advertising nosh-up. Good whilst being consumed with a solid finish. However, for advanced advertisers, there’s a second approach to preparation. One that allows brand and music to meld into one another and mutually reinforce each other. More time is invested in the process, and often more money, but the end product becomes an acquired taste – and worth the money.

Music is at least as important to Red Bull as its primary ingredient, taurine.

Red Bull understands how to hang music on its brand the way no one else does and to create an image that reflects the way they want to be seen. That’s why Pharrell Williams casually dances through the advertisement spots, and the cool Awolnation regularly adds soundtracks for videos. The company wants to communicate a feeling of life that fits its image. Young, adventurous, hedonistic. Red Bull takes the initiative by getting involved with many musicians very early on, and by getting involved in music scenes. The company has a label, twelve recording studios and organises an annual workshop to bring new talent together with established names in the music business. It’s about long-term partnerships between brands and musicians from which both can benefit because they jointly generate maximum attention.

The question is, as always
in marketing: Is it authentic?

Because, in the end, it’s all about selling the advertised product. Equal partnerships, common events, all that is secondary. The most important ingredient remains believability and credibility. Not every brand fits every musician, and it isn’t the best marketing strategy for everyone. Sometimes it is completely sufficient to choose a well-known pop song as background music for a good video. For Red Bull and Converse, the symbiotic relationship with the musicians works because the brands already draw from the lifestyle spring of the music scene. It’s all brilliant, young and very easy.