Red Bull's Promotion Strategy

Red bull was launched in 1987 in the Austrian market and since then it has become synonymous with energy drinks. The red bull company founded by Dietrich Mateschitz since then has launched a variety of products. It now records annual sales of 4 billion cans in 160 countries employing 7700 employees. Red bull employs a progressive marketing strategy constantly trying to engage the consumers and evolve the brand.

Every organization uses a different marketing mix called 4Ps and red bull’s marketing strategy revolves around:

•    a distinctive product - the taste of the product is unlike any other, it also has a functional effect in comparison to other soft drinks
•    it is easy to obtain as it is sold in a variety of places – including retail outlets and food and drink establishments
•    it uses a premium pricing strategy. The product is priced above that of competitors’ products. Consumers will 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.

However, perhaps the most interesting element of Red Bull’s marketing mix is its approach to promotion. Its campaigns are quite innovative and uses the tagline ‘it gives you wings!’ symbolizing pushing of boundaries of what is possible and helping people realize their goals and dreams.

Red bull follows a promotion strategy known as below the line promotions. But unlike other companies instead of using the traditional sponsorship it organizes its own events. The annual red bull air race and red bull x-fighters invites top pilots and FMX riders to showcase spectacular stunts among thousands of spectators.  These events build brand value and creates awareness and interests among consumers.

A key aspect of red bull’s promotion strategy is to create genuine relations with athletes, supporting them to challenge themselves and reach new heights of excellence. Red bull helped Robbie Maddison to achieve his lifelong ambition of doing a motorcycle backflip over the tower bridge of London. Through such events red bull is able to engage more with customers. Red bull’s events provide a platform that excites, surprises and challenges participants as well as spectators.

Big expenditures such as the formula one team is not the cornerstone of red bull’s promotional activities but smaller activities as local events are given more importance. It is based on the belief that local activities create a big impact and interesting media coverage. Added advantage of this is that they can easily change anything that isn’t working. The programme is managed through an annual activity plan which is based on a three year overview of promotional work

Red bull engages consumers with word of mouth marketing. It is based on the principle of pull marketing. It relies on the transmission of a positive image from person to person through personal communication that is consumers bring the product to other consumers. It is in contrast to putting the product in front of the customer, here the customer is brought to the product through excitement created among consumers. The founder of red bull hired a wings team in the 1980s to go and talk to people one to one about the product. It started creating interest about the product and as customers started appreciating the qualities of the product they became advocates of the brand sharing opinions with family and friends creating a ripple effect.

It continues to use this strategy to promotion through innovative initiatives as:-

1.      .Red Bull Wings Team

2.      .Student Brand Manager Programme

3.      .Red Bull Bedroom Jam

4.      .Red Bull Reporter

Social media remains the core element of red bulls marketing campaign as these provide a direct and relevant line of communication to red bulls target audience the youth. Facebook twitter and microblogging sites provide a platform making it easy to share information and opinions. Red bull uses a variety of smart phone apps to reach is audience and it is far more effective as it filters out the noise. This also has the advantage of flexibility and can be changed in real time unlike advertisements that need to be planned months in advance.

For promotions to remain effective they need to be revised .Word of mouth marketing can be difficult to measure unlike other methods and although sales is an important figure it uses other measures to evaluate effectiveness as:-

1. Setting targets for sales returns from the smaller promotional activities.
2. Evaluating the amount of editorial coverage its activities receive in the media.
3. Measuring the number of blogs related to Red Bull’s products and the frequency of comment on these blogs.
4. Evaluating the online influence of Red Bull activities in the social media. For example, on Twitter there are around 260,000 followers of Red Bull activities. On Facebook, more than 21,000,000 consumers ‘like’ Red Bull.
5. Conducting an annual brand health-check with consumers to ensure that they like the brand.

Measuring red bull’s returns in investments in promotions is not just through sales figures as this misses the big picture. Long term brand loyalty is as important as sales.

Red bulls marketing strategy allows it to continuously evolve to changing market environment and adapt to technology. This maintains its connection with the youth and keeps its relevance. Consumer expectations are higher than ever and red bull continuously keeps on evolving and innovating.