Evaluating Monster Energy's Cross-Channel Marketing Strategy for the Skateboard Audience in 2023

Purpose of Research

Monster Energy has developed a skateboard marketing approach, ingraining themselves in the community through:

• 29 Sponsored Athletes
• 10+ Sponsored or Hosted Skate Competitions

The purpose of this report is to look at all of Monster’s channels and see where they are focusing their skateboarding messaging.  

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To assess Monster Energy’s marketing strategy, the following channels have been reviewed for anything skateboarding-related:

• Organic social
• Paid social
• Influencers & partnerships
• Email 
• Paid Search
• SEO
• Referrals
• Traffic

Any channel that has a skateboard activation is included in this report.

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Key Takeaways

Insights

• ‍54% of Monster’s event sponsorships have unique activations like the Hell Camino course at Independent Trucks RIP Ride Rally.
• Monster sponsors events that get turned into YouTube event segments where they offer cash prizes for the best tricks.
• 82% of Monster Skateboard athletes are mid-tier influencers, only 5 athletes have over 1M followers.
• ‍8% of Monster Energy’s posts are about skateboarding but they generate 19% of the brand’s total views.
• 50% of the skate films Monster Energy promotes are distributed by media entities (Thrasher Mag) or other athlete sponsors (Santa Cruz, Nike SB). 
• Monster Energy self-produces a series called “Aspire” that focuses on one athlete at a time to dig into their pasts.
• 96% of Monster Energy’s skateboarding ads featuring athletes were shared through YouTube.

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Content Trends

In H1 ‘23, Monster generated 15M views and engagements on skate content, 19% more than the previous period…

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…However, Monster Skateboarding has seen a 3% decrease in Google search interest from July 2021 to June 2023. 

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Monster sponsors 10 major events with an international presence.

Most of the events take place in the United States, followed by Europe.

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Monster Energy takes a simple sponsorship approach with 44% of their events, only paying for logo visibility.

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56% of Monster Energy’s event sponsorships go beyond traditional logo placements. 

• ‍Build the course for competitions
  For X Games in 2022, Monster Energy helped build one of the courses for the competition in the backyard of their athlete Elliot Sloan, deeming it “The Sloanyard”. 
• ‍Be the life of the party
  For Tampa Pro, Monster Energy hosted an open bar for the whole weekend. Serving not only their product but free alcohol for guests. 

Views 46K

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Engagements Hidden

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They maximize visibility with event activations and collaboration posts.

Monster Energy and Independent Trucks hosted “RIP Ride Rally” where Monster had a custom event segment.

• ‍Create a unique park setup
  Monster Energy created the “Hell Camino” park for RIP Ride Rally where athletes used the back of a branded truck for cash prizes.
• ‍Leverage posting terms with partners
  Independent Trucks predominately hosted the event but Monster Energy, as a partner, was tagged or featured in every single event post made by the company to their audience of 2M viewers.  

Engagements 19K

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Engagements 3K

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Monster sponsors events that get turned into YouTube event segments.

• ‍Offer cash prizes 
  ‍Monster Energy sponsored the STU Open in Brazil. As part of their partnership, they built another unique set.
  This came with Monster Energy sponsored video segments on YouTube that featured “Best Trick” cash prizes, demonstrating how skaters are benefiting directly from the brand.

Engagements 1K

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They host events with the pillar of skate communities, local shops.

Monster Energy’s World Tour brings their skate athletes directly in the mix of local communities.

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Monster Energy’s skateboard roster reaches over 30M people.

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Monster doesn’t have strict posting guidelines for athletes.

Monster Energy’s biggest skate athlete, 15 year old Rayssa Leal, has 12M followers. 

Organic Features are any content that has Monster logos naturally throughout the post while Directly Tagged is when athletes tag Monster Energy.

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Rayssa Leal’s top engaged content features her sporting Monster merch with little mention of the brand with no tags.

Engagements 1M

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Engagements 664K

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Engagements 536K

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Monster maintains a centralized organic social strategy.

Skateboarding content accounts for about 8% of Monster’s posts across all social media platforms.

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They focus content on skate events and athlete talent.

Monster generated 27M in views and engagements from skateboarding posts.

Posts made by Monster Energy on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok and Twitter from July 2022 to June 2023.

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Monster never posts about their booths at events, instead focusing on their athletes’ wins. 

Views 838K

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Views 716K

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Views 494K

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Monster outsources content production through partners.

They work with reputable media or athletes’ other sponsors to produce larger skateboarding films.

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They produce one series, then rely on distribution for the rest.

Monster Energy currently only produces a series called “Aspire”.

Views 493K

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Views 314K

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Views 310K

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They serialize athlete content to episodically dissect their lives. 

Monster’s Aspire series has 9 episodes at about 10 minutes each, generating 653K views.

Views 159K

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Monster promotes product with sponsored athletes that fans trust.

Monster Energy spent $107K on ads featuring skateboarding from July 2022 - June 2023 with a focus on YouTube.

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They use overstimulating visuals to bring athletes out of their normal environments as a unique approach to promote product.

Spend $77K | Impressions 5.1M | CPM $15.1

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Monster ran a traditional POP^* advertising campaign to catch prospective skate customers with a sweepstake giveaway.

POP = Point of Purchase advertising, usually physical displays in supermarkets.

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Total follower count of each respective entity’s Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter accounts.

Digital Advertising Data Source Caveat