How was Red Bull Founded? Brand Story, Growth Process and Marketing Strategies

One of the first companies that comes to mind when we think of brands is of course Red Bull. Red Bull is a brand that is always interesting and different with its unique style and its unique sense of freedom. This brand Red Bull, which already holds more than 40% of the energy drink market, emerged years and years ago in Thailand. In 1976, Thai Chaleo Yoovidhya produced a drink called Krating Daeng. This drink, which at first looked like a medicinal drug, became popular among truck drivers and factory workers. It stands out from its competitors with its bull symbol and becomes popular in Thailand by sponsoring combat sports.

While Krating Daeng was popular in Thailand, Dietrich Mateschitz from Germany tried Krating Daeng for the first time in Thailand on business and loved it so much that he drank dozens of Daeng that day. Later, Mateschitz met Yoovidhya and became a 49% partner in the company with $500,000. Mateschitz, who was a 49% partner with Yoodivhya, left the remaining 2% to Yoodivhya’s son Chalerm, and the company, which continued in a partnership structure, opened to Austria in 1987.

While in its early days Red Bull was an energizing drink for workers and truck drivers, Mateschitz wanted to position the drink in a different place and started to settle in Austrian resorts. He changes the pricing to make it a premium drink. To popularize it among young people, he selects student representatives and makes it cool by offering them special facilities and cars. And over the years, it becomes the number one energy drink company in the world, expanding to Hungary, Germany and all over Europe.

What exactly is behind Red Bull’s success?

Marketing efforts, innovative approaches and a vision of being different always set Red Bull apart from its competitors. Since Red Bull wants to represent movement and energy, it has put extreme sports at its center and emphasizes this aspect by sponsoring extreme sports. Red Bull, which has been competing in Formula 1 with its own team since 2004, sponsors combat sports, motorsports and many extreme sports. Recently, it has been trying to reflect Red Bull’s mind and energy in football with its own football teams.

What Red Bull markets is actually more a feeling than a product. It sells the feeling of being free, being energetic, being different. The way Red Bull makes you feel when you drink it is much more important and different than the ingredients. Red Bull is one of the most valuable marketing successes that goes beyond the quality of the product and identifies with the product.

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Red Bull Marketing Strategies

Red Bull could have just been on the shelves, like a standard energy drink, with TV commercials and billboard ads, and talked about the features of the energy drink. But instead of doing that, they chose a different space and positioning. They determined a different marketing strategy and area. They chose very well where they wanted to be, who they would go to and where they would differentiate themselves. By doing this for years, they built the Redbull image of today. This is the only way to dominate a market by more than 40%. For your own business, you should also determine and plan very well how you will differentiate in your market. What emotions can your product evoke, how do the users who buy your product or service feel in the end, and where would they be happy and surprised to see you? What are your features that competitors don’t have and how can you reflect this. What is something that none of your competitors are doing that you think would be great? You should ask yourself all these questions and take action with the answers. To become a global and successful brand like Redbull, there are huge opportunities in today’s digital world. For this, you can apply primitive thinking. In other words, instead of looking at competitors and imitating and implementing what they are doing right, you should think from start to finish as if you were building an industry for the first time, as if you had the first product in your field in the world. This is how innovative ideas and action plans can emerge. For example, if Tesla had looked at brands like BMW, Mercedes and Volvo and followed their example, it would not have achieved the market share it has today and would not have been able to differentiate so much. Redbull would not have been so successful if it had designed its marketing strategies by looking at Coca Cola. You, too, should think independently from competitors and develop innovative ideas in your own field in your own sector.

In this content, we tried to benefit your startup by telling you the inspiring story of Redbull. If you want to make the right decisions in your digital marketing journey and manage your entire marketing process well, you can meet Grower’s technology. Grower collects all your marketing data on a single screen, determines what you need to do and assigns smart tasks to you and your team to grow your business. Good luck and see you at Grower,