Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in which we talked to some of the brightest minds working in media today. I'm Variety co editor in chief Andrew Wallenstein. For many people, Red Bull is the energy drink that gives you wings, but for the past ten years, the beverage company has become a lot more than that, the pioneering force in the worlds of branded entertainment and action sports.
That non carbonated component of the business is overseen by today's guest, Garrett Meyer, who has served as CEO for Red Bull Media House for the past two years. Thanks for coming in, Garrett. Let's do a little level setting for those who may not be familiar with Red Bull in the media business, because as long as you've been in the job, you've been pretty quiet and let the brands work do the talking. Now it's your turn. Yes.
The Red Bull Media House over the last ten years has been a drive of everything that we've been doing on the content on the media side, both in support of what we do on the brand side, but also
with a lot of the unbranded exercises. So during that time we've created red Bull TV as a stone alone app as well as an integrated experience red Bull dot Com together with all the various content features that we've had a cross video, whether that's music that is audio in general, our podcast, but also our text and our video.
We're really much focusing on the editorial pieces around our events, around our seven d plus athletes that we do, but also all the inspiring and inspiring stories that we hear in the world, whether that's in sports or culture, dance, music, etcetera. So we're super excited that we're now at a point we really feel what kind of can take it to another level. And So you've been at this now for the past few years, but the Red Bull has been
in entertainment for a lot longer than that. What did you inherit two years ago and how has it changed in your time in the top job. So when I came to the job a couple of years ago, what I found was a company, as you said, super strong and Brandon Entertainment. We've done some really really good pieces of content. Everybody remembers Stratus, Felix Bomb Gardener jumping from Space. And I think we had gotten ourselves to a really, really strong point where we had platforms that attracted a
sizeable audience. But now given where we are two thousand, seventeen, eighteen and nineteen, media world, as you know and as we all know, changing rapidly with an influx of content investments that has reached absolute new heights, with an unsurpassed amount of content that we're seeing out in the world being consumed on multiple platforms. So for us, it was
really important to take it to the next level. Next level for US means really still focusing on platforms that we have, but they're really becoming much more audience centric. Audience centric for US means finding audiences that kind of find communities around the world or locally to kind of
get together. For us, obviously that has to do with a lot of the course boards that were in, whether that is surfing, whether is skateboarding, whether that's bike king, but a lot has also to do with things were not so relevant, so not so known with which is music, dance, arts, etcetera.
So for us, building an organization that is really focused around these audiences and then speaking to these audiences with relevant content, finding them where they actually live, whether that's digitally or terrestrially, and then talk to them in a tone that is native to kind of their community and
how they talk with each other. That is the relevancy that we're trying to create to also then work through what we've always believed in authenticity and what as we say, giving wings to people and their ideas and so now for the last two years, we've really worked on refocusing around audience centric programming, audience centric content creation also not just alone but also with a lot of the partners set out there. And so people understand it when you're
talking about this sort of audience centricity. How is the Red Bull media experience different today than it was a few years You mentioned, for instance, partners, and I guess you're doing a lot more of that. Yes, absolutely. I think what really has changed is that what we consider the Red Bull Media network has really expanded beyond our own and managed platforms into other shared and distributed platforms.
If you look at our relationship with that's with YouTube, or you look at our relationships with Twitch or other publishers that are out there, we've gotten a lot deeper in our relationship with traditional broadcasters. But even on our feature film site, if you look at some of the documentary releases that we've done over the last few years, we've shouldn't seen much much deeper relationships and distribution and
theatrical releases. So overall we've just gotten much much broader in the way we kind of consider our own world of Red Bull and where our content lives, of our audiences lives. You mentioned hundreds and hundreds of athletes give us a sense of, you know, some of the big names that we've heard of that are sort of in the Red Bull camp. Well, I think that really depends
on we go. You know, we talk about so many different disciplin lens, but you know, we have you know, as we talked about relevancy last week, Lindsey Vonn who's been with Red Both for such a long time unfortunately
announcer retirement. But we have max Va staff and in Formula one obviously, we're working very closely with Anthony Davis on their basketball side, and we have Marcel here show For anyone who is now doing the winter season, especially me coming from Austria as one of the premier ski athletes out there, I think we can talk about a number of athletes that we can point toof over the years have provided so much success and so much joy to the people out there, and really our role in
all of this is to just document all the successes and everything that they've been doing, telling their stories out to the world. And also your definition of sports probably keeps expanding. The sports is now part of the mix. Absolutely e sports. But as I also mentioned dancing, if you look at the Global Dance Competition, you know, we're very strong in any kind of urban sports. We host every year the World Championship and break dancing, which has
been growing in popularity. That's the sport now, it's not it's always been a sport, but it's been a sport that actually has been growing in popularity significantly. And you know, the athleticism that you see what the athletes are participating in those has been huge. But yes, you're absolutely right.
If we're looking at the sports and professional gaming, we've gotten ourselves into a number of different competitions with our own teams, with some of our own events, and what we're seeing is that, obviously, with that popularity that the sports is experiencing right now, again we found another kind of sports. But that being said, there's also a lot of sports that have had relevancy over the last few years that have now gotten mainstream attraction. I mean, just
look at Tokyo for next year their WebEx Olympics. We have skateboarding being at it, you have surfing being at it, you have bouldering being at it. I mean those are all sports that we at Red Boats have been considered court to what we do for many, many years. So it's great to see that those athletes now their accomplishments are actually being recognized on an international level, you know, and obviously the Olympics are at the highest level that
you can compete at. So we're extremely proud to kind of see, you know, that our athletes are not having a chance to kind of prove themselves. I'm ashamed to admit that boulder ring, is that rock climbing that last week, that's exactly that's what everybody kind of does. It's amazing when you actually kind of see it in personal what what do what those people do? It's Uh, those athletes
are phenomenal in their accomplishments. Let's talk a bit about branded entertainment because I think Red Bull really is unique in when going back, you know, farther than you were even at the company they have, Red Bull has gone deeper into this than probably any other company out there. I mentioned at the beginning it was kind of a pioneer.
Has the strategic approach changed, you know, it felt like for a time and you mentioned the stratus jump some years ago that you couldn't turn on a television and watch any sort of actions were and not see that logo. Yeah. Uh, the strategic approach actually hasn't changed that much. In the beginning or thirty years ago, when the company was created, it was a means to the end. It was something
about a product that nobody really understood. The energy during this category was not really well defined, so it's hard to communicate actually what the brand was about. But what what our founder kind of believed right from the beginning was that if you brought people together in communities and in this case it was around events, bring people together and get to see, you know, the accomplishments of people what they can do, driven through maybe Red Bull, then
you can achieve on a utility basis. So kind of you get the boots when you need it within an occasion, whether you're studying, your working or you maybe partying um and specifically in sports, that you have an opportunity to kind of like can perform more and higher. So what we did right from the beginning is captured these events, capture these athletes, and nothing really has changed. What has changed is that now there are a lot more brands out there who are following, you know, the same path.
Traditional media as we know, it's all challenged, regardless of the media that you're on, whether that's television, whether that's radio, or that's magazines, newspapers. So there's a lot more companies over the last eight years. And I don't know whether I have the numbers all right, but I think over the last eight years, the investment in brand entertainment has more than doubled. Obviously very very much focused on video.
So now what we're seeing is we're not alone anymore, kind of in the space that probably twenty thirty years ago we still had a much more stronger voice in. So for us, what is really important that we kind of maintain the relevancy that we built, whether that is through sports events or culture events. And what's good for us to see is that our audiences, through the strength of our stories and through the strength of our events
and athletes, has been kept growing. So the strategy, to your question, hasn't really changed, but it has evolved and it's gotten more complex also in the world. Whether it's just a lot more content out there, what about your relationship to the parent company. I'm wondering how that, if at all, has changed. I'm wondering whether it's even necessary for your division to be profitable. What are the expectations. So the expectations are that we have a dual mandate.
You absolutely right. The media house sits separately from the beverage. But what the one strong mandate is obviously to create content around the stories of our athletes and our events. That will never change. We now do over twelve hundred events a year. We have, as I mentioned, seven d fifty plus athletes, and that sounds expensive. Well, it's less that it's about expensive. It's much about that they have
so many great stories to tell. I mean, our athletes are just phenomenal individuals who are performing at the highest level every day. And what we see now in this world is that audiences around the world are much much more interested about what the stories are behind. Of course there's still interested in the results and in the competitions, but really the narrative around this and so everybody these
days is talking about storytelling and narratives. But what we've been seeing is that the access that we have to those events athletes made fascinating stories. So yes, we are creating more content than we've ever done before and that and again in return, supports the brand. That being said, we're also standalone media house that has the expectation to perform and create content at the highest level and for that will require the best writers, producers, uh and directors,
production partners, other students that we work with. And so for us, it is really really important that we kind of keep that quality up and in some cases that not necessarily relates back to the brand. So there we go. We create feature films. That's where we kind of go out create serialized content. We're still in print media. We
have local print media that we're pursuing. Again for us, localization it's really really important, and so building media capability in the times of two thousand, two thousand and twenty, where the world is changing rapidly and how people consume is really important. So we do have those tool mandates and we kind of working with them. On the profitability side, we have a vast portfolio. We have everything from RepU records and record music publishing, to red both films all
the way to our magazine and book publishing business. So we look at all of them individually on a profitability basis. But the big advantage that we have is we are a private company, so we have the opportunity to invest, we can try new things, we can be out there, and we take a longer term view on the investment as it comes back, including innovation because as we all know of technology is exploding, so we're trying to see how it can harness that both our production but also
in making our athletes being better athletes. Give me an example that what's the way that you might be innovating
with athletes using technology. So one of the things we're looking at right now is how can we use uh mind controlled activity around gaming, not just to actually think about how we make E sports athletes better, but how can we also kind of improve mental responsiveness for physical athletes Because us the games, everything that people do, everything goes faster, the demands from the athletes are getting harder, so physical on that, we have made a lot of
progress over the last decades on really improving physical fitness. Um, so the idea about improving mental fitness is now also being seen as a key ingredient, not just for the sports athletes obviously who have to be extremely alert, but also for other sports where if you can improve reaction time exactly, then you are a much better position to improve performance. So this is kind of where we're working with our athletes, and that is something of great interest
to us. That's so interesting. So for instance, you mentioned, you know, random example here Anthony Davis. You can sit him down with a game that you will create and a helmet or some sort of head apparatus in which he will control the game without using his hands, and this will help develop his agility. I mean, that's mind blowing, so to speaking, to speak literally, well hopefully not literally, not blowing mind but no, but you're right. I mean again,
everything is just a tool. Everything is just an experiment. So and you know, and this is not where like finally, I mean, somebody who's performing a level like like an Anthony Davis obviously is already at the pinnacle of things. But what we can see is whether their improvements. And again, in some cases, when you see ski races which we get decided among the top five within five hundreds of
a second, you know that every little bit counts. So what we're just doing is trying to find other ways, as we've done over the years, trying to improve the environments in which athletes can perform for them to just get better. So it's just one experiment. It might it might not work, But to your point about profitability. As the company that we are, we have committed ourselves to give wings two people to get better in what they're
doing and their ideas. And this is just one example where we think that, hey, maybe that's another piece and if it's not, I'm going to try something else. And that is our commitment back to the athlete community, but also to the artist community out there, just to kind of become better than where they are today, because that's what they're striving for. Okay, Well, I mean you talked about the many and I mean many different places Red Bull is active today in terms of media and platforms.
Let's talk about a few. I mean, what strikes me about on the film side is I've seen some of the things you guys have done in recent years and that doesn't even seem to have the Red Bull as prominently branded as you might be, say on television. So what's the point. Well, the point is two folds. First of all, we're really starting with the story in mind. And and with this story comes, especially these days, a
huge expectation what authenticity is concerned. Um. The audience is out there, extreme, discriminating and they understand what they see. So for us, it's important to tell the story first. There are stories that are environments, that events where branded environment absolutely makes sense. But if we tell an emotional story, if we tell, for example, Rebecca Russia's story in The Black Road last year, uh, a great great film won an Emmy. Uh, it's an amazing story about commitment, it's
about endurance, it's about closure. I mean, there's so many emotions in there. You have to allow stories like that to breathe. And if there is a place for a brand, fantastic. If not, we would like to put this story first. What it doesn't return for us is that we get credibility back also in the marketplace for creating credible stories. And again by coming back to what it is we do.
We are not in the business of creating branded commercials. Yes, we're branded product environment that we're operating, but we're first and foremost like to tell our stories and if those stories should be told, well, you need really really good people to do that. And so for us, we really kind of balance out when there's a place for the brand to be involved and then where's a place where maybe we just tell a story and let that story breathe. And I think we've done a good balanced job and
trying to kind of move that forward. But we're looking again further forward where we think that as a standalone media house, we do have the opportunity now with the credibility that we built in the marketplace, to actually also take the next steps. So what might be the next step in the film space for Red Bull? So the next step would be, first of all, to do more and what we've been doing, we've been extremely selective and
limited in the releases we've been doing. I think we have the opportunity to tell more stories and be out there not just on uh documentary features, but also serialized content. And the other thing we're now looking at is actually to get into a scripted feature development. What would that look like? What? What? What? What? What exemplifies a Red Bull scripted movie? Um, that's a really good question because that's where in the development for right now but um,
you know, for us, anything that's aspirational. I mean if you watch if you watch a film and it just kind of makes your you know, it lifts your heart, if lives your spirits. If it's just something about where somebody overcomes something or achieve something that um, you wouldn't really think about them maybe achieving. At the outset. There have plenty of positive stories out there, and and we live for those positive stories. We live with someone who's out there, has an idea, goes for it and then
achieves that that goal. So I think there are stories that we can get ourselves behind that are extremely in the spirit of what we believe is red bull um and fits to what we do. And if we can tell those stories in a scripted environment, I think sometimes that's a lot more impactful than our documentary side. So so that is something we would like to kind of explore. So currently we have a few things in development and maybe in a year or so we can talk about
some of them being in production. And I want to pry about specific titles. I'm just curious how you're going about this. Are you now at festivals looking to buy acquisition? Is is always an opportunity but I think ideally with some of the ideas we have, finding co production partners, finding studios who might kind of share our passion for really really good stories, and then having that opportunity to partner up and co produce, I think would be also
a pass with that would go down. I gotta mine when you first said this, the first thought I had was comparing read what red Bull might do to say what Lego does or what Angry Birds does do like an animated character that's a red bull or something with wings? I mean, are you thinking anything like that or a like off the reservation? I'm not sure that animated animation
would be the first step of what we're doing. I think there are some real people out there who have really provided inspiration and to the world and what's left done, And I think if we kind of picked some of those stories and tell those stories, I think that would be the first step, right, But you know, you never know. Animation has had a really good run over the last few years. But I think we're gonna stay staying the staying on the un the scripted side without animation first.
And does this tell us anything in terms of your commitment to unscripted documentaries, I assume that's still very much in play. Yes, absolutely, and h I'm always excited about the documentary we do. I mean these documentaries have proven not just ourselves because you know, obviously we love the stories that we tell, that's what we do them. But also I think if we're looking out to kind of how the audience are responding and how the industry is
responding to it as well. So if we look at the movie that we've had recently at the p g A Awards nomination with The Dawn Wall has been a tremendous success for us. I think it tells an extremely inspiring story. Um. So for us to stay committed to those kind of stories, absolutely, and we just want to
tell more stories. Um Also, as I mentioned, you know, serialized, it's just a lot of opportunities tell stories that just take a little bit more time that maybe kind of explode the frame of of our and a half to our feature. So for us, any kind of stories really remain at the core of what we do. I guess we should all be raising ourselves for a red Bull oscar perhaps in the future. Uh, you know, if if we were so lucky to get recognized for anything we do.
We were always appreciative, but I think it is a story first that comes out there, and hopefully with either alone or with some of the partners, we're gonna get to tell some story. Is absolutely so let's also talk about music. I know you guys have been in that space for a while, but more recently the publishing business. Why music publishing, Well, in my opinion, the music industry is really based on the I p of those who write, who produce, who compose, um. That is really the origin.
It's the nucleus of everything that creates music. Uh. I don't want to diminish anything after talent successes of those who actually perform, who sometimes are the same people are not. But for us, as successful as we've been in some of the performing arts on the recording side, I feel like that with all the things that we do, have a much greater opportunity to serve the community on the writers and the producers side, um, very much as we do it on the athletes side, where we have much
more experience. I think with the Redwood Music Festivals, the Redwood Music Academy, the record music studios that we have all over the world, we do have a really, really great infrastructure where we can invite writers and producers to come in to fulfill their dreams, their ideas um and again that's all what we're always about, and there has not really been a good reason why we haven't done
that more on the music publishing side. So now ramping it up and kind of getting more artists in u to Red Bull Um to be part of our family part of that infrastructure, I think will provide a really great opportunity over the next few years to have some really good music kind of coming out of those who are signing with us on a local level. And I mean, are their ambitions in terms of other parts of the
music business that you're looking to get into. Well, Actually, as as as I started alluding to, we already a lot of parts of the We we do our music festivals around the world. We have an educational music program that we've been pursuing for the last fifteen twenty years. We've had to Red Bull Records for a while, we have Red Bulk Music Publishing for a while. We have
a music portfolio company, and we create music content. Also, again back to the documentary piece, we've done featured documentaries about the artists and musicians. Um so we've already been pretty holistically present within the music industry, but I do believe that we haven't really putting all the pieces together to grow our relevance in there, and I think that was what we have to offer. It really provides a great opportunity for for young inspiring artists who out there again.
We will always start with those who are still looking to find their wings a little bit like the people who who are nornestly talented. And we've seen enough talent shows out there on television over the last few years to know that there's amazing talent out there, and we just want to have our part and kind of bring some of that talent um to shine. So, you know,
we've talked about video and film and music. The thing though, that strikes me when I think about my own impression of Red bull and where I where I feel it's impact most social media, and I would imagine that also drives a lot of the other momentum in some of these other parts of the business. Red Bulls built a pretty significant footprint in social media. How did it get there? Because that's not easy to do, especially because essentially you
are a beverage brand. First and foremost. Yeah, uh, it's it's a very good point. I think the reason that we had the opportunity to build a social footprint again goes back to the enormous talent that we're just surrounded with. I think if we would put the brand first, which we are not, I think it would have been a much very different story. I also don't think it would have been as universally accepted. Um. So for us, it's
not about putting the brand first at all. But if you do put the athletes and their accomplishments, if you do put the events and and and the uniqueness of the events that we do around the world, and then if you take the stories that kind of combine all of those and you allow those stories to put forward, you know, you get a much much just response out there in the social world. Um and again even socialist highly you know, uh, ambiguous now right, it's not any
more one channel, it's multip channels. And how you communicate through those channels. And if you take the stories and you make them appropriate to the audience that are out there, and you let the stories tell, and if you have the athletes or the artists tell their stories and you
give them a platform for expression. I mean, for us, the greatest thing we can do is use everything that we have from an asset and infrastructure perspective and make them a platform for expression for those who are part of the family. And then you really really see how people respond because they don't want to hear the red bull stories, but they want to hear is the story of the athletes and of the events and the things
that are happening out there. And so we're providing a lot of freedom to everyone to just tell their stories. And I think the more authentic you are about that where people on the other side and they're like, well, this feels not authentic, it doesn't feel real, et cetera. The more you do this and then have people tell each other the stories, the more successful you are in social And so we're extremely lucky that we're in a position where we have all these athletes, we have all
these influences who are telling with passion. There are stories, and you know, we're just you know, lucky that we're in a position to support them and telling those stories. So is there anything here? I mean, it's funny because we've covered so much ground here, it's hard for me to say, well, what's next? What else is there to do? Because it feels like you're going in so many different directions, But there are there things that and beyond that we
should be looking at. Well, I think there's a lot more to do. The world is changing so so quickly. Um. I mean, if we would have had this conversation a year and a half ago and you would say, hey, what's what's what's ahead? What do you think is happening?
You know, we could have talked about a million things, but probably you know, um, having formed a new relationship with Ninja, who's you know, one of the top not the top Fortnite play out there, and even fortnitely two years ago, we would have not had a conversation about it because it wouldn't have even existed. Now it's the largest game in the world. And now if we see the influence that someone like Ninja has also as part of being part of full Is, it's just something that
it's not something we could forecast. So for us, we do look proactively and how we can do all these things that we do, our events, our athletes, how we can do all of that better. Do we get into other sports or do we go deeper in some sports. I mean for us, again, we talked about the Olympics for next year. Three versus three basketball, just take that that's a very different animal, despite the fact that basketball has been in the Olympics stuff for quite a while.
I think we have great opportunities kind of see and the you know, the role we can play. I mean again, three verses three is one of the old man urban sports that we've had that we've been involved in, very much like skateboarding and others. So how can we make sure that our athletes will have the right opportunities so we will continue to do the things that we're doing.
I think we're really going to in nineteen and twenty focus on the audiences that are out there and what they want to hear, what they want to see, how they want to engage with us. I mean, relevancy and engagement is the new currency, and so for us, it is about how we can enhance that in any opportunity comes to us, either directly because we might have the idea of some people and and uh from the athletes,
I might have the ideas, but also our partners. You know, if partners come to us or people have ideas out there and say hey, I have an idea. Can you help me kind of maybe give this idea wings? Can we do this together? Can we co produce? Can co create? Um? That is what excites me. What's happening in n I
think creativity is at an ultimate high. People see that they have enormous opportunity out there to express how they feel, what they want to do, the stories that they have, and if we can just play a small part in that, I think, you know, we're in a really good place. We don't have a lot of fun time doing. We're all looking forward to seeing what Red Bull does in and beyond. Garrett, thanks for coming in and talking to me. Oh, thank you so much for having me and much appreciated.
This has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next week for another helping, acintillating conversation with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you subscribe to the podcast to hear future for songs.