He conquered the world with an ordinary product… And extraordinary communication. Meeting the man who created Red Bull.

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The experience

Take a businessman who’s completely exhausted from an intense work week. Send him on the Luxembourg-Paris motorway on a Friday evening, with a reservation in a charming com- pany in a trendy restaurant in the French capi- tal. Wait until he dozes off at a petrol station: you have the perfect opportunity to test the effect of a Red Bull! First surprise, the drink is much more expensive than Coca-Cola. It has a strong gummy smell, very much like a Coca- Cola. confusing the first time. Slightly car- bonated, it can be drunk like a soda that’s too sweet, but the effect is undeniable. Fatigue seems to have disappeared and gives way to a slight overexcitement for several hours. With 320 mg of caffeine per litre, the appeal of the drink is quickly identified. This is more than double that of a typical soda, slightly more than tea but less than coffee. Together with the lim- ited sugar content, this composition makes the drink very attractive for students during exam periods, night owls, lorry drivers, sportsmen and women... and tired businessmen.

 

The Art of Buzz

Some compare Dietrich Mateschitz to Sir Richard Branson, the creator of Virgin. Yet their methods are completely different. If the Eng- lishman is quick to put himself on stage to pro- mote his products, the Austrian leaves all the media space to his drink: few people know his face. He makes the most of this discretion by letting the craziest noises about Red Bull run wild: it’s the “buzz”. For example, the taurine used in the composition is not extracted from the testicles of bulls, contrary to popular belief. The aphrodisiac virtues of the drink also remain to be established. The method works perfectly: the public revels in the wildest rumours. In fact, many followers have resorted to smuggling to obtain the precious beverage when it was banned in the United States. France. As for jour- nalists, they meet difficulties in verifying their information but it motivates them to write about it.

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The stroke of genius.

In hindsight, the success of Microsoft, Ikea or Google makes sense. The right concept to the right moment... For Red Bull, it is indeed the talent of Dietrich Mateschitz, who’s the obvious choice. Director of marketing of the Blendax toothpaste brand in 1982, he discovered energy drinks during a trip to Asia. In this part of the world, they are packaged in dark bottles, like medicines, and are already selling well. When he learns that a partner of Blendax owns such a drink called “Kreating Daeng” (Red Buffalo), he invests his savings against 49% from a new com- pany, carbonates the liquid, takes care of the packaging and starts the process of obtaining marketing authorization in Austria. A disastrous market study could have discouraged him; col- our, taste, packaging: everything sucks! Worse: no market exists for this type of product. The Austrian seems satisfied: he goes for it. He anticipates the polemics that his product will spark, confident in his ability to bring it out of anonymity. The first boxes were sold in 1987 in Salzburg.

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The secret of success.

The key to Mateschitz’s success can be summed up in two points: 1. it invests 30% of its turnover in advertising. 2. He does it in an ingenious way. Rather than paying fortunes in classic television or newspaper advertising, he creates the event and thus enjoys free visibility in the media. In 1991, he organized the “Red Bull Flugtag” in Vienna, which crowns the person who manages to fly as far as possible with a machine of his own making. A worldwide success. In the wake of this, he sponsored many extreme sportsmen and women in order to associate a “lifestyle” with his brand. With success in mind, he created increasingly spectacular events, inventing in the process hallucinating new disciplines such as the “Air Race”, which presents airplane races in cities, or the “Crashed Ice”: skater races in the streets of cities. Having reached the big league with several billion bottles sold each year, he ended up sponsoring the champions: Sébastien Loeb, the world rally champion, Lindsay Vonn the ski champion, etc... Today he owns 2 formula 1 teams - Red Bull and Toro Rosso -, 1 Nascar team, 2 football teams in Salzburg and New York. In addition, the billionaire is making a number of bold investments: he has bought an island near Fiji from the Forbes family or has set up the “Hangar-7”, a highly innovative multi-pur- pose concept at Salzburg airport. He also organizes the “Taurus World Stunt Award” with a well-chosen name. It is the world reference of the craziest stunts, where his friend Arnold Schwartzenegger makes regular appearances. In France, the presence of Taurine and glucu- ronolactone banned distribution until 2008. As soon as the authorization was granted, the commercial bulldozer started to work: invasion of cars in the brand’s colours in Paris, base jumping from the Eiffel Tower, trial on the roof of a building in the defence... A minister who understood nothing about modern marketing warned consumers about the dangers of drink- ing, in the name of the precautionary principle. She thus offered millions of euros of free adver- tising to the brand.

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Under the sign of the bull

Dietrich Mateschitz’s astrological sign looks like an extra publicity stunt. That said, the extremely powerful marketing strategy is not just a coquetry: it is a vital necessity. Coca Cola, Pepsi and other mastodons have gone after it. We remember how these giants entered the water market, notably with Dasani and Aquafina. Against the Austrian, they remain powerless for the time being. He is maintaining his lead by billions, constantly inventing new concepts. Worse, he’s launching Red Bull Cola. On Sunday, April 19, 2009, all his competitors took a serious blow to the head: Red Bull scored a historic double at the Formula 1 Chinese Grand Prix. Not only did Dietrich Mateschitz put two cars in first and second place, he also got a Toro Rosso to 

finish in the points. 19 points in one day in the

queen of sports-marketing discipline... A record history. At universities, not only are students drinking Red Bull, but they are now being intro- duced to the marketing methods of its creator.

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