The Red Bull marketing mix framework has helped the Red Bull brand become an invincible powerhouse in the energy drink industry. Red Bull dominates the energy drink market with help of three significant tactics which are putting the target audience first, focusing on Red Bull’s marketing strategy and ensuring maximum brand visibility to achieve the brand’s success and growth.

Red Bull’s success can be attributed to the marketing efforts of its marketing team and Red Bull’s strategy which focuses on its slogan “Red Bull Gives You Wings”, Red Bull energy drinks, the brand’s association with extreme sports, target audience, consumer content marketing, word of mouth marketing, Red Bull’s logo, Red Bull campaigns, Guerrilla marketing and social media strategies to create brand awareness and a distinct brand identity in the energy drink market.

About Red Bull

• Origin Country: Austria
• Founders: Dietrich Markwart Ebenhart Mateschitz and Chaleo Yoovidhya
• Founded: 1987
• Headquarters: Fuschi am See, Salzburg, Austria
• Employees in 2023: 15,779
• Annual Revenue in 2023: 8.87 billion EUR
• Brand Value in 2023: 16.96 billion EUR

Red Bull is a leading brand of energy drinks in Austria and with a 38% market share has become the 3rd most valuable brand of soft drink after Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The company was ranked #142 in the Forbes List of “World’s Best Employers 2022” and #69 in the Forbes List of “World’s Most Valuable Brands 2020”.

Besides manufacturing and selling energy drinks of the same name, the Red Bull brand is known for sponsoring motorsports and extreme sports. In the year 2013, the Red Bull Racing Team was the winner of the “Formula One Constructor’s Championship” for the fourth consecutive year.

Target Market of Red Bull

Currently, Red Bull dominates the energy drink market but when the Red Bull House first appeared on the scene there were no takers for the brand’s success. During the initial days, people had not heard about energy drinks and as traditional mass media channels were expensive it was difficult for the Red Bull team to promote the Red Bull brand through traditional advertising.

The target audience consumes content from their surroundings. This was the time when the marketing team of the energy drink brand came up with a beautiful plan of going straight to the target audience. But who was their target audience and where was the target market? Well, the marketing team first chose men between 18 years to 35 years of age but where to target them was also an important question.

The energy drink brand started targeting audiences at bars, coffee shops, libraries, college parties and music festivals. The brand’s success was dependent to a great extent on the marketing efforts of the Red Bull team which started distributing free samples at the places frequented by their target audience.

Red Bull’s target audience includes top athletes, university students, professionals and travellers.

Even after so many years, Red Bull focuses on the same strategy of direct contact with the target audience through free samples at coffee shops and college parties, promoting music festivals, creating massive stunts for traditional TV channel content and sponsoring extreme sports like mountain biking, ice hockey, New York Red Bulls and EmSee Battle Rap Championships that will lead to greater Red Bull market share in the energy drink market.

Red Bull created and published content that is at par with a proficient publishing house. Let us not forget that Red Bull is a mega brand publishing house that sells Red Bull energy drinks and not vice-versa or the other way around

Red Bull Marketing Mix (4Ps) & Marketing Strategy

Red Bull’s marketing strategy revolves around the concept of reaching out to the target audience, consumer content, creating massive stunts and brand visibility through extreme sports so that the energy drink giant Red Bull brand can emotionally appeal to the people. Like major publishers, the mega-brand publishing house has become one of the renowned energy drink brands in the global market creating content, publishing own record label, sponsoring mind-blowing programs and so much more for the brand’s success in the energy drink industry.

Product Strategy of Red Bull

Red Bull’s marketing strategy focuses on its product portfolio so that it can continue with its dominance as the best brand of energy drink in the international market.

The brand has continued with its marketing efforts of promoting the original 250 ml energy drink packaging unit. It has also rolled out the Red Bull Organics range for its target audience.

Red Bull is a functional beverage that contains taurine, caffeine, B-group vitamins, glucose, sucrose and water and is sold in 250 ml cans. Since its launch nearly 100 billion cans of the beverage have been sold in the worldwide market.

Besides the energy drinks the company is also involved in the distribution and marketing of other beverages like the Carpe Diem herbal soda range of beverages, Red Bull Simply Cola and Sabai Wine Spritzer in association with Thailand’s Thai Siam Winery.

Product Mix of Red Bull

Red Bull’s marketing strategy focuses on achieving huge success in the market because of its quality product offerings. Red Bull markets all its products with the slogan “Red Bull Gives You Wings” as it has gained immense visibility among the target audience.

In the beginning, only Red Bull Energy Drink was launched in a silver blue slim and tall can but with time the brand created several variants of the renowned beverage to suit the individual needs and preferences of every target audience.

The Summer Edition is a perfect blend of strawberry and apricot flavours with hints of peach, the Yellow Edition contains the taste of tropical fruits, the Green Edition has the taste of dragon fruit and the Sugar-Free drink does not contain any sugar.

Red Bull created the following product variants to achieve huge success in the energy drinks industry

• RED BULL ZERO
• RED BULL TOTAL ZERO
• RED BULL ENERGY SHOT
• RED BULL ENERGY DRINK
• RED BULL SUGAR-FREE
• RED BULL SUMMER EDITION
• RED BULL YELLOW EDITION
• RED BULL GREEN EDITION
• RED BULL RED EDITION
• RED BULL SILVER EDITION
• RED BULL BLUE EDITION

Place Strategy of Red Bull

Red Bull stands tall as the leading energy beverage brand in the United States in the year 2022. With time the Red Bull’s market has grown far and wide as the brand has spread its product presence to 175 countries across several countries of the world.

Top growth markets include India, Brazil and Eastern Europe. The Red Bull brand is focusing on further global expansion in the core markets of the USA and Western Europe and the growth markets of developing countries.

Place and Distribution Strategy: Red Bull Marketing Strategy

The company’s place and distribution strategy is extensive that includes various traditional distribution channels so that the beverages reach the end customers quickly. The company owns trucks and distribution centres to have more control over the supply chain and ultimately the product prices.

Retail Stores

The products are easily available at supermarkets, convenience stores, retail outlets, cafes, college canteens, nightclubs, bars, casinos and restaurants. Customers can buy directly from these shops at their convenience

Online Sales

Customers can order the beverage directly from online shopping portals. The company website does not sell products from its site.

Pricing Strategy of Red Bull

Red Bull showed outstanding sales and a leap in profit margins in all its target markets. The popularity of a brand can be estimated via its sales figures. Red Bull dominates the market of energy beverages as it sold nearly 11.582 billion Red Bull energy beverage cans in the worldwide market.

2022 was a highly profitable year for the Red Bull brand as the group turnover showed an increase of 23.9% from 7.8 billion EUR to 9.6 billion EUR.

Red Bull has conducted in-depth marketing research to understand consumer behavior and the perceived value of the product in the market so that its pricing strategy can align with the product offerings.

The company has adopted the following pricing strategies

Premium pricing Strategy

Red Bull offers quality products in the consumer market. The target audience especially young adults is willing to pay premium prices for high-quality products. This is why the brand has adopted a premium pricing strategy without losing on sales despite facing pressure from rival brands in the competitive market.

Psychological Pricing Strategy

The company has adopted the psychological pricing strategy to influence consumer behavior. The product prices are kept just short of a round number to make them seem accessible and affordable for instance $2.99 instead of $3.

Anchoring Pricing Strategy

Another technique adopted by the brand is the anchoring pricing strategy where the brand at the beginning levies a higher price on the product for example higher priced limited-edition cans that reflect better quality at higher prices compared with the regular cans

Penetration Pricing Strategy

The brand has used the penetration pricing strategy whenever it has decided to enter new markets for example when it entered the USA it kept its product prices affordable to gain a higher market share.

Promotional Strategy of Red Bull

Red Bull’s strategy is to create brand awareness in the target market and for that, the brand has spent millions on Red Bull campaigns, sponsorships and advertising.

Red Bull stands for energy beverages and this is how the brand markets its products. Red Bull’s marketing strategy focuses on extreme sports and new and crazy stunts like mountain biking and ice hockey, sponsorship programs like Red Bull Racing, Red Bull Air Race, music festivals and FC Red Bull Salzburg, guerrilla marketing, content marketing and creating content for traditional media sites to boost brand identity, reach out to target audience and become one of the most popular energy drink brands in the global market.

The marketing efforts and promotional tools in Red Bull’s marketing strategy include

Traditional Mass Media Channels

The brand has created traditional TV channel content for viewers who love traditional advertising. The Red Bull campaigns are shown in prime time on popular channels. Other traditional media utilized by the company are newspapers, radio, billboards, hoardings and even Thai truck drivers in Thailand.

Red Bull Website

The Red Bull website is optimized with four segments products, athletes, events and TV. Users can gather content and information from this site. The company does not sell products from the website it only offers related information through it.

Social Media Strategy

The target audience consumes content from various social media sites and this is why the energy drink giant has decided to use social media platforms as part of its social media strategy. The power-packed brand uses curate social media content and dynamic social media posts on the same professional level as other tools to deal with the fierce competition from rival brands. It has a huge media presence on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook which leads to better customer engagement. The Twitter account focuses on images to promote direct links with customers.

Red Bull Media House

Red Bull created a media company called The Red Bull Media House which specializes in games, music, lifestyle and sport. The professional publishing house has become one of the major publishers of several magazines like Servus, The Red Bulletin and Terra Mater.

The media company operates via other divisions also like Red Bull Records, Red Bull Music Academy and Red Bull Music Publishing etc. The company promotes celebrity endorsements through its own record label.

Sustainable Efforts

Red Bull’s marketing strategy focuses on sustainability because the company realizes its importance for a brand in the current scenario. Red Bull minimises energy use and carbon emissions in their production and supply chain as much as possible. The brand created a circular packaging system where the cans are collected and recycled for further use thus achieving 95% energy savings through the recycling process.

Red Bull’s Sponsorships and Events

Red Bull’s sponsorships of sports, various events, new and crazy stunts, teams, individuals, celebrities, music festivals and extreme sports helped the brand in gaining high visibility among the target audience. Some of the most popular extreme sports events are Red Bull Crashed Ice, Red Bull Air Race and Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. The brand also sponsors FC Red Bull Salzburg, New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Racing Team, Ice Hockey and EmSee Battle Rap Championships.

Slogan – “Red Bull Gives You Wings”,

“Red Bull Gives You Wings” is the slogan of the brand Red Bull. The credit for the brand’s success in the market is often given to its catchy slogan “Red Bull Gives You Wings”. It is one of the most popular slogans with a nearly 60% recognition rate. Once you hear “Red Bull Gives You Wings” it automatically resonates and connects with the brand. Red Bull has used the slogan “Red Bull Gives You Wings” for the marketing of every Red Bull variant in the market.

Digital Campaigns – Notable Digital Marketing Campaigns

Giving Life to the Night

The ad “Giving Life to the Night” was a landmark campaign for the brand as 2475 cans of Red Bull were recycled and transformed into a new renewable energy source. The ad showed the brand’s commitment to sustainability

World of Red Bull

The ad “World of Red Bull” features Travis Rice and his team surfing, biking and skydiving to show the brands association with extreme sports

Key Takeaways

Heavy investments in marketing, research, planning and distribution have paid off as it has resulted in a marketing plan that promotes brand identity and increases customer base year after year. The key takeaways from the Red Bull marketing mix and marketing strategy are

• A solid pricing strategy that aligns with the marketing plan of the company
• Extensive distribution network and efficient handling of the supply chain
• Ability to adapt its strategies in accordance with the different markets
• An aggressive promotional strategy and visual branding paved the way for success in every market

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