EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The aim of this report is to study and analyse the marketing mix of Red Bull Energy Drinks company. It has elaborately studied all the four Ps of the mix such as product, place, promotion and price. This is done through a detailed explanation of the secondary research methodology. The results showed that it is fast becoming the most dominant energy drinks of the world with operational in more than 170 countries and variety of flavours with only two packaging options. The conclusion is that this product has focused on the brand awareness and only stuck with the different elements related to this product.
INTRODUCTION
Marketing mix is defined as the basic model for all types of businesses that drive the decisions of a customer while purchasing and selecting a product. It is mainly consists of 4 Ps and namely price, place, product and promotion. Moreover, this is an important tool for marketing strategy for a product while targeting a specific market or audience (Cornil, Chandon and Krishna, 2017). It adds value to the customers’ demands and requirements and further adds its features while selecting any approaches for marketing any product. This assignment will focus on understanding the different aspects of marketing mix for Red Bull energy drink.
COMPARISON OF TARGET MARKETS
Overview of company– Red Bull is the largest producer of energy drink in the world and is based in Austria. This company was founded in the year 1987 with the slogan stands at “Red Bull gives you wings”, which is based on a brand myth (Dudovskiy, 2012). Their marketing approach is not traditional and henceforth, it took the route of sports events such as Air Race, space diving project, cliff driving World Series and more.
Target markets statistics– U.S. market has seen a huge rise in consumption of this energy drink, especially the Blue edition and Sugar free that has a market share of 1.9 % and 6.8 % respectively. It has also been observed that around more than a billion US dollars of sales was generated in the year 2018. The US population is consuming this drink as they were consuming it during the year of 1987 (Brown, 2014). On the other hand, Red Bull saw a rising sales percentage of around 30 % in India, an Asian country where this company is expecting a steady growth. There were reports that showed that Red Bull is on second spot in the US market but a huge success at the international levels and has dominated it with approximately 32 % by the year 2013. .
PRODUCT –
This brand has evolved from time and moved from its standard flavour to a number of popular flavours to suit the needs of their customers at the international levels. It involves Kiwi, coconut, tropical fruits and many such sugar free drinks. The management has also developed Red Bull Mixers and it consists of non alcoholic ingredients like cocktails and mixed drinks. It has become popular in Canada as the alcohol levels are lower and make it sourer, sweeter or savoury (Ragsdale and et.al., 2010). Additionally, the customers are now becoming more health conscious and thus, there is a huge shift for these drinks of Red Bull.
In addition, there is also a mix of several ingredients that are taken by youth, mainly who are into sports and working for continuous hours. The Red Bull energy drinks include a range of products like sucrose, taurine, caffeine, vitamin B, glucose and have also a sugar free ingredient named as acesulfame K and aspartame. Along with this, the packaging has also played an integral role in attracting their audience attention and has stick with two type of colour (Laquale, 2007). Firstly silver can with tall blue colour and 2 red bulls in front. Second one is a gold one and has a short can that is available in many countries.
PRICE –
This company has always adopted the premium pricing as its core strategic input for price mix. Although they have a number of competitor companies such as Cloud 9, Rockstar, KS and Monster in the market, they are still the market leaders and have a loyal customer base. This is mainly due to its high quality and usage of good and nutritive value based products with good packaging styles. Their reach is global and this pricing strategy helps in retaining them to be always competitive at the international levels (Meier, 2013). There is also a pattern that has been observed in which the customers buy this product in bulk rather than a single can.
Despite the premium pricing, the company’s management has always adopted the competitor pricing as one of its main strategic inputs to maintain the overall reputation. The selling price is also at equal level throughout the world, which makes it clients to buy it irrespective of their location. Additionally, there are no worries about getting accustomed to variety of drinks, as the standard format has been the same since its beginning. Only few flavours have been added for suiting the changing customer taste habits and purchasing parity power as well.
PLACE –
This company is headquartered in Austria, Europe with two production plants that are only 40 kms apart from one another and is functional in more than 170 countries. Moreover, their selling strategy has always been with a USP that focuses always on the product, unlike many other products that hire another celebrity to sell it ( Hirschfelder, 2015). Here the star is the product only which is mad the centre of attraction. Along with this, the management has established cordial relations with the local subsidiaries, many supermarkets, gas stations etc. for better reach for the customers. Such a distribution network has helped in easy accessibility to its products with sufficient amount of products availability.
Additionally, the management has devised a scheme in which exclusive refrigerators were planted for the customers who go out for shopping for groceries or visiting bars, malls etc. The stores have been given ample amount of fresh batch of this drinks to set aside form their rival companies and are placed in the supermarkets, stores, or even in bars, night clubs etc. (Grasser, Dulloo and Montani, 2015). Such an arrangement has made this product as a brand name with only two types of packaging and it was noted that above 61 billion cans were sold out in the year 2018. This brand has also maximised its online presence for both bulk and single making.
PROMOTION –
This section has always focused on making this product as a brand by selling on its USP. The marketing team has a combined effect taken by adopting the route of digital channels, BTl and ATL. For instance, communication of this brand has always been emphasising on the story telling and has connected with the clients instantly. The slogan has been catchy, however few people connected it with the over dosage of hang over feeling which turned out to be negatively impacted. This brand has set up the content marketing a new level of standards that assisted in creating awareness and also led to form a loyal base of clients in all around the world.
Further to the above, the arrangement of sports events led to improvise the networks extensively and helped in promoting the new products/ flavours efficiently. It is also a faster and cheaper way of marketing their products (Alsunni, 2015). The distribution strategy while opening any outlet or vendor in any location also helped the promotional activities (Buchanan, 2018). The regional attributes help the management to take into account of its tagline and depict it in innovative ways through establishing their own merchandise stores that is online available. Or it also leads to promote via magazines, billboards, Tv commercials, You tube ad etc.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
It can be summed up that marketing mix is a great tool to make the audience aware about the features and also put focus on the promotional activities. The application part is more prominent and people working for this brand are up to date to make the necessary changes that give them an edge over their rival companies. This only makes them different and has successfully ruling the markets for more than 32 years now. Additionally, the company’s management has intelligently established its 4 Ps and strategically brought changes as per the socio-cultural aspects.
The recommendations could be that they can engage in more online platforms and connect with the untapped markets to leave a lasting impression. The focus must be to adopt a pricing strategy that is on the line with the other competitors as this brand is still very expensive as compared to them (Farris, Shames, Johnson and Mitchell, 2016 ). The promotional programs must be more relevant to raise awareness about the social causes such as mental health, etc. Additionally, the objective is to diversify its customer base from its sports persons to other segments of the youth including working professionals, college students and many more.
REFERENCES
Alsunni, A.A., 2015. Energy drink consumption: beneficial and adverse health effects. International journal of health sciences, 9(4), p.468.
Brown, K., 2014. Selling Energy. BCOM BEST BUSINESS RESEARCH PAPERS, 7, pp.4-14.
Buchanan, L., 2018. The influences of digital marketing of energy drinks on the food-related attitudes and behaviours of young adults in Australia.
Cornil, Y., Chandon, P. and Krishna, A., 2017. Does Red Bull give wings to vodka? Placebo effects of marketing labels on perceived intoxication and risky attitudes and behaviors. Journal of consumer psychology, 27(4), pp.456-465.
Dudovskiy, J., 2012. Red Bull GmbH. Research Methodology.
Farris, P., Shames, E., Johnson, R.R. and Mitchell, J., 2016. Red Bull (a). Red Bull (a)(April 14, 2016). Darden Case No. UVA-M-0663.
Grasser, E.K., Dulloo, A.G. and Montani, J.P., 2015. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular effects in response to red bull consumption combined with mental stress. The American journal of cardiology, 115(2), pp.183-189.
Hirschfelder, B., 2015. Effects of content marketing on attitude formation in the South African energy drink market (Doctoral dissertation, University of Cape Town).
Laquale, K.M., 2007. Red Bull: The other energy drink and its effect on performance. Athletic Therapy Today.
Meier, B., 2013. Energy drinks promise edge, but experts say proof is scant. Energy.
Ragsdale, F.R. and et.al., 2010. Effect of Red Bull energy drink on cardiovascular and renal function. Amino acids, 38(4), pp.1193-1200.