Adrenaline and adventure are never scarce when it comes to Red Bull and the various sporting events they host every year.

So when the brand launched the first edition of its free-ride mountain biking event – the Red Bull Joyride – it made sense to hand over its wings to Microsoft Advertising to help promote and drive attendance, Jason Quehl, director of marketing, Red Bull tells MiC.

The extreme sporting event, targeted at 18- to 24-year-olds, was held in Whistler from July 21 to July 23 and encompassed an assortment of  events that saw 25 athletes competing for a $25,000 prize. Close to 25,000 people attended with 35,000 more watching on Redbull.tv.

Leading up to the Red Bull Joyride, a multimedia (print, OOH and online) campaign was put in place by Montreal-based Touché!PHD with the help of Sid Lee in Toronto on the creative.

Major focus was placed on the digital component of the campaign, which included an Xbox branded destination environment (BDE) where Red Bull created its own page on the gaming platform. Users were presented with a thumbnail tile of the BDE on their screen, which they could click on to engage with the brand and its uploaded content.

“From a general awareness sense, we were able to deliver above our expectations,” he says. “Our engagement rate was up 3% approximately and that was almost triple the benchmark.”

It being the second time Red Bull has done this sort of promotion, having done one for its Red Bull Crushed Ice event earlier this year, Quehl says he learned what to include and what to leave out so consumers get to the core content.

“You need to look at your objectives and make sure that you have all the right content that you want people to interact with,” he says. “You might want to leave some content off so that you have consumers only interacting with the ‘must-want’ content.”