Red Bulls Marketing Strategies - 1380 Words

Strengths: Red Bull’s marketing strategies focused primarily on selling their energy drinks to young consumers, and extreme sports athletes. Adolescent and young adult consumers are often risk takers and are willing to consume anything that will make them feel alive and energized. â€Å"To build brand image, Mateschitz used grassroots sales tactics that got college students and night clubbers to roll over in sweet surrender, like puppies awaiting chest rubs† (Lidz). Red Bull’s sports event marketing on professional athletes created the gateway to their successful branding strategy of only allowing popular sports companies, such as Formula 1 Racing, to wear their logo as an official sponsor. This is as opposed to Monster Energy Drinks, where†¦show more content†¦Weaknesses: One of Red Bull’s primary target markets are young athletic consumers. However, there are serious side effects that occur, especially among student athletes who consume energy d rinks before, during, or after a game: â€Å"In 2010, four high school football players from Orange County (Calif.) were hospitalized with persistent tachycardia, or rapid heartbeat, after consuming heavily caffeinated drinks before a game† (â€Å"Health Experts†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ). Since Red Bull launched in 1997, health concerns about energy drinks have been expanding consistently among the public. Although they are completely aware of the growing concerns, the company still targets and encourages athletic consumers to purchase Red Bull energy drinks, thereby potentially putting themselves and their consumers’ health at risk. Red Bull prides itself on its marketing techniques and they owe much of their success to how they advertise and promote their brand. Nonetheless, Red Bull has revealed that 40% of all their revenue goes to marketing and advertisement. In 2013, Natalie Zmuda wrote, â€Å"the brand spent $73 million on measured media in the U.S. last year, according to Kantar Media† (Zmuda). Considering that the article is two years old, Red Bull is most likely spending much more than this, and this is on media advertisement alone. This is revenue that could potentially be going towards creating a new product to sell. The company has already made its mark on society,