This week we’re talking about why everyone is telling you to become a media company…but how nobody is telling you what that actually requires first.
The brands that are winning are the ones that feel inevitable, the ones whose audiences follow them across every format, every platform, every era.
And it’s not because of their distribution strategy, or because of packed content calendars or posting frequency. They are winning because they built one thing before they built anything else.
THE ENERGY DRINK THAT BECAME A MEDIA EMPIRE…AND WHAT IT TEACHES US
In 1987, a company launched an energy drink in Austria with a modest budget and an immodest conviction: that the brand would not sell a product. It would embody a way of living.
Red Bull did not become a media empire because it figured out content marketing. It became a media empire because its founder knew exactly what the company stood for. Every piece of content, every sponsored event, every documentary, every magazine, every Formula 1 team was an expression of that singular conviction made visible in the world.
In 2024, Red Bull reported $12.1 billion in net sales — a record, according to Bloomberg. That number comes from the energy drink. The media empire is what makes people care about the drink. It’s reported The Red Bull Media House today generates over $2.5 billion in annual revenue. It produces more than 1,250 events a year across 100 disciplines.
It is, by any honest measure, one of the most successful media operations on earth.
And it sells energy drinks.
The content didn’t create the identity. The identity made the content inevitable.
This is what most people miss when they hear “brands are becoming media companies.”
They hear a strategy. They hear a format.
They hear: start a podcast, launch a newsletter, post more video.
What they don’t hear — what nobody is saying clearly enough — is the prerequisite.
You can’t build a media company without first knowing who the media company is about.