CS8

Marketing Excellence >>Red Bull

Red Bull’s integrated marketing communications mix has been so successful that

the company has created an entirely new drink category—functional energy

drinks—and has become a multibillion-dollar brand among competition from

beverage kings like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. In less than 20 years, Red Bull has become

the energy drink market leader by skillfully connecting with the global youth.

Dietrich Mateschitz founded Red Bull in Austria and introduced the energy drink

into Hungary, its first foreign market, in 1992. Today, Red Bull sells 4 billion cans

of energy drinks each year in over 160 countries.

So how does Red Bull do it? The answer: differently than others. For years, Red

Bull offered just one product, Red Bull Energy Drink, in one size—a slick silver 250

ml. (8.3 oz.) can with a European look and feel. Red Bull’s ingredients—amino acid

taurine, B-complex vitamins, caffeine, and carbohydrates—mean it’s highly

caffeinated and energizing, so fans have called it “liquid cocaine” and “speed in a

can.” Over the last decade, Red Bull has introduced three additional products: Red

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Bull Sugarfree, Red Bull Energy Shots, and Red Bull Cola—each slight variations of

the original energy drink.

Since its beginning, Red Bull has used little traditional advertising and no print,

billboards, banner ads, or Super Bowl spots. While the company runs minimal

television commercials, the animated spots and tagline “Red Bull Gives You

Wiiings” are meant to amuse its young audience and connect in a nontraditional,

nonpushy manner.

Red Bull builds buzz about the product through grassroots, viral marketing tactics,

starting with its “seeding program” that microtargets trendy shops, clubs, bars,

and stores. As one Red Bull executive explained, “We go to on-premise accounts

first, because the product gets a lot of visibility and attention. It goes faster to deal

with individual accounts, not big chains and their authorization process.” Red Bull

is easily accepted at clubs because “in clubs, people are open to new things.”

Once Red Bull has gained some momentum in the bars, it next moves into

convenience stores located near colleges, gyms, health-food stores, and

supermarkets, prime locations for its target audience of men and women aged 16

to 29. Red Bull has also been known to target college students directly by providing

them with free cases of Red Bull and encouraging them to throw a party.

Eventually, Red Bull moves into restaurants and finally, into supermarkets.

Red Bull’s marketing efforts strive to build its brand image of authenticity,

originality, and community in several ways. First, Red Bull targets opinion leaders

by sampling its product, a lot. Free Red Bull energy drinks are available at sports

competitions, in limos before award shows, and at exclusive after-parties. Free

samples are passed out on college campuses and city streets, given to those who

look like they need a lift.

Next, Red Bull aligns itself with a wide variety of extreme sports, athletes, teams,

events, and artists (in music, dance, and film). From motor sports to mountain

biking, snowboarding to surfing, dancing to extreme sailing, there is no limit to the

craziness of a Red Bull event or sponsorship. A few have become notorious for

taking originality and extreme sporting to the limit, including the annual Flugtag.

At Flugtag, contestants build homemade flying machines that must weigh less than

450 pounds, including the pilot. Teams then launch their contraptions off a

specially designed Red Bull branded ramp, 30 feet above a body of water. Crowds

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of up to 300,000 young consumers cheer on as the contestants and their “planes”

stay true to the brand’s slogan: “Red Bull gives you wings!”

Another annual event, the Red Bull Air Race, tests the limits of sanity. Twelve of

the world’s top aerobatic stunt pilots compete in a 3.5 mile course through a low-

level aerial racetrack made up of air-filled Red Bull branded pylons 33 feet apart

and reaching 65 feet in height. In other words, pilots fly planes with a 26-foot

wingspan through a gap of 33 feet at 230 mph. These Red Bull–branded planes

crash occasionally, but to date no fatalities have ever occurred.

Red Bull’s Web site provides consumers with information about how to find Red

Bull events, videos of and interviews with Red Bull–sponsored athletes, and clips of

amazing feats that will be tested next. For example, Bull Stratos is a mission one

man is undertaking to free-fall from 120,000 feet, or 23 miles high. The jump will

be attempted from the edge of space and, if successful, it will mark the first time a

human being has reached supersonic speeds in a free fall.

Red Bull buys traditional advertising once the market is mature and the company

needs to reinforce

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