How Did Red Bull Become Popular?
Red Bull’s Origins
Red Bull, the energy drink produced by Dietrich Mateschitz, has been a major player in the beverage industry since 28 years ago, according to its company website, Energydrink-us.redbull.com. In 1987, the product was first introduced in the market despite its being radically different from other beverages (Kotler, 2013). In fact, Mateschitz created a new product category for Red Bull and implemented a different marketing strategy for his concoction. As most beverages were then marketed as soda, coffee and beer, Red Bull’s founder tried another approach by selling it to athletes and sports enthusiasts, thus making the product synonymous with giving an energy boost as its tagline suggests: “Red Bull gives you wings” (Solomon, 2012). Today, the official website of Red Bull states that “…Red Bull is available in more than 169 countries, and around 60 billion cans of Red Bull have been consumed so far.”
Popularity Growing
Red Bull’s popularity can be attributed to its marketing strategy of opening a new market for it and uses guerrilla marketing to achieve company goals. As defined in Entrepreneur.com, guerrilla marketing is defined as an “unconventional way of performing marketing activities on a very low budget.” What the founder of Red Bull did was simply produce a product that the market may buy and market it at a low cost despite competition from the big players in the industry. Red Bull targeted students and bars at first, allowing the product to become famous with the youth until it associated itself with extreme sports that began the coining of the words “energy drink.” Other companies that adopted this marketing strategy include Gold’s Gym, Duracell Batteries and Folgers Coffee (Kotler, 2013).
References
Guerrilla Marketing. In Entrepreneur.com. Retrieved from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/guerrilla-marketing
Kotler, P. (2013). Principles of Marketing. 15th Edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
Solomon, B. (2012, Oct. 15). Meet the Billionaire behind Red Bull’s Death-Defying Corporate Culture. Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2012/10/15/meet-the-billionaire-behind-red-bulls-death-defying-corporate-culture/#6aa7b6bf64f7
