Red bull

RED BULL, THE ANTI-BRAND BRAND

Team: Freddy Bereciartu Claudia Domínguez Jaya Morwani Boris Pardo

Executive Summary: Red Bull, the anti-brand brand, was founded in 1984 by Dietrich Mateschitz after his travel in Asia for Blendax toothpastes in 1982. In Thailand Masteschitz found a cheap tonic sold in a brown bottle by TC Pharmaceuticals and favored by Thai factory workers to remain alertduring their shifts, it was called Krating Daend, which means “Red Bull” in Thai. The Austrian FDA just approved in 1987 the launching of Red Bull because was reluctant with the first energy drink in the country, actually at the beginning Red Bull was just sold in patrol stations, because bars refused to stock what seemed to them to a medicinal product, however soon Austrian clubbers andsnowboarders discovered the drink´s reviving effect and brought it with them to alcohol-free raves. Among 1992 and 1994 the product was expanding its market in Europe, and in 1997 was tested in California, finally the drink took 5 years to be distributed nationally and by 2003 the US market generated an estimated 40% of Red Bull’s turnover. With the Red Bull succeed and with their high sales, it starts toappear some competitors, some of them where locals sellers in their own countries, but others where global sellers and started to threaten their market position. Moreover huge brands like Coca Cola or Pepsico were considering getting into the market. With this entire panorama Red Bull has to take some decisions, and we will analyze some of them.

Problems 1. The loss of its original consumerbase, as the 'millennial' become working adults. How should the firm attract a new group of 16 year old consumers? 2. Health concerns that have emerged in several countries over problems associated with high intake of caffeine. Red Bull was banned in France and Denmark following the publication of these concerns. It is classified as a medicine in Norway and until recently could only be bought inpharmacies in Japan. As the health and energy soft drinks market has reached maturity, Red Bull is concerned that it is unable to target mass consumption in these countries. 3. Being over reliant on a single brand. Until 2003, the company only produced one version of Red Bull. A sugar-free version was introduced in that year, but had at first considered as to “wimpy” for the Red Bull brand. On theother hand they don’t have another product to sell, just “Lun Acqua” and we don’t know how succeed it’s this brand 4. The mature market for energy drinks has attracted some of the global firms, such as Coca Cola, Pepsi as well as Asda/Wal-Mart, with their own brands seeking to gain a competitive advantage over the market leader

Possibilities Considering that Red Bull is a well know brand, and stillis the leader in the energetic brand segment, despites its sells have decrease, they have some chances to improve their actuality, but any option should be taken logically and with a clear action plan where the measures taken are linked each other. 1. To recognize that the ambivalence in the customer perception and the problems with their ingredients is affecting the brand and therefore thesales, they could:  To do a research about its components and ingredients in order to show to the public that they can’t produce any damage for the health.  With this results show them in a huge publicity campaign in order to communicate the new discovered of this beverage.  To add new components (or remove some existing) and to try to get in the healthy market, pointing to those fit personsoffering them more energy to do sports. It’s difficult that they will consider those option, because all of the reputation and succeed that they have is because of the controversy that the brand has had along the time. Besides, Mateschitz seems as a strong person in his decisions, and it seems that they will not change their strategy as extreme as we propose.

2. Because of Red Bull it’s about the...