Red Bull- Leader in Global Marketing

When I first had Red Bull, it was just because Red Bull was considered as a premium F&B product endorsed by various athletes and had a brilliant word-of-mouth marketing. I didn't like the taste, it was too sweet and bitter but still, after so many years Whenever I am around premium people, I ask for Red Bull. Do you know Red Bull has headquarters in Austria and is a collaboration between Austrian and Thai tycoon? Yes, at last, I found something with an outstanding marketing strategy that is not from the US or European nation. Its founder Dietrich Mateschitz at first rejected the recommendations of a market research report which suggested not even try to launch an energy drink. He relied on his gut-feel instead and spent a year changing the formulation of the drink from the original Thai version and another two years fine-tuning its marketing and communications strategy. The drink was launched in Austria in 1987 and in many European countries before the end of the millennium.

Red Bull gives you Wings

Its marketing strategy associated itself with adventurous sports and to position its brand with their tagline they literally gave wings. I am not joking, how many of you know that Red Bull sponsored the highest ever free-fall parachute jump from 24 miles above the Earth.They own the following pro sports teams: Red Bull Racing, Scuderia Toro Rosso, New York Red Bulls, FC Red Bull Salzburg, RB Leipzig, Red Bull Brasil, EHC München, EC Red Bull Salzburg, Red Bull Ghana. They make revenue from all of those brands, plus their energy drinks. Red Bull supports close to 500 world-class extreme sports athletes that compete in spectacular and often record-breaking events across the globe. Mateschitz explains, “We don’t bring the product to the consumer, we bring consumers to the product.”

Guerilla Marketing

Red Bull created a blue ocean for themselves, using some unconventional way to acquire their target audience.Red Bull utilized “Red Bull Girls” to hand out free drinks to college students. This strategy was wildly successful, resulting in a rapid increase in sales. So, when you’re cramming for that exam, grab a Red Bull to help keep you focused all night. Red Bull’s runaway success also spawned an entirely new category in the global F&B market: the energy drink. Its innovative strategies, especially in distribution focusing efforts on non-conventional garage forecourts, convenience stores, and nightclubs, saw growing sales from 6 million cans in 1996 to 5.9 billion cans in 2015.

AIDA promotion strategy

1. Creating Awareness: Red Bull engage in Both Above -the-line and Below-the-line marketing through various channels like TV advertisement, Extreme sports promotion etc. to create Awareness among potential customers.
2. Simulating Interest: Red Bull generated interest among their customers by promoting the benefits as an Energy drink. Promoting it in more than 500 sporting events to simulate the interest for energy drinks among sports enthusiasts.
3. Generating Desire: Desire always comes from emotional attachment and a key aspect of Red Bull’s promotion is about creating genuine relationships with individual athletes, such as Robbie Maddison, who was able to achieve his lifelong ambition when he performed the first ever motorcycle back-flip over a raised Tower Bridge in London. Through supporting these athletes in pushing themselves beyond their limits, Red Bull is able to engage with consumers. Red Bull events provide experiences that excite, surprise and challenge participants and spectators.
4. Action: Red Bull Wings Team – The team of students goes out on the road in their Red Bull mini to help launch the product in new markets. The branded mini has a Red Bull can on the back of it. The team offers a cold can of Red Bull to people in need of energy to demonstrate the product’s qualities. Through engaging consumers, in a fun, non-threatening way they create a personal and positive product experience.

Pricing

Red Bull positioned itself as a premium pricing brand with 10% more price than their most expensive competitor. Consumers pay a premium for Red Bull due to the quality of the product and the product’s benefits. This is reflected in the fact that it is the world’s best-selling energy drink.People prefer buying Red Bull in bulk as its’ cheaper than buying a single can. Yet overall they are the most expensive energy drink compared to competitors like Rockstar, Tzinga, Cloud 9, Gatorade, Monster, and KS.

Red Bull is just one of many companies who excel at global marketing. And due to these efforts, their brand is widely known everywhere across the globe.