The Mythology of Red Bull

Red Bull operates under a fundamentally different principle than other brands. Other brands look for something to sponsor that aligns with their brand ideals or image. Red Bull creates the sponsorship opportunities for their brand. In doing so, Red Bull creates a) a much deeper connection with the activities and athletes they sponsor, and b) creates a brand that feels far more genuine than simply slapping their name on something.

The result is not something that's "brought to you by" or "in partnership with". The sponsorships, the teams, the athletes; they _are_ Red Bull. That sort of identity has an incredible connection, and one that can drive it's own revenue in addition to driving fizzy drink sales.

I just wanted to mention that I remember the Baumgartner freefall for a specific thing: I watched it streaming live on youtube and I remember looking at the number of active viewers climbing above 3M (I think maybe up to 8).

This was 2012, and I realized 1) youtube had insane scalability 2) live streaming was going to be a much bigger thing then I could ever imagine.

2 completely unrelated redbull thoughts:

1. I look back at my college years when "Red Bull Vodka" was a thing. I still am a bit in shock that we'd go out and have multiple of these in an evening and then go to sleep... In my later years I've gone to bars and - on a whim - asked for a "red bull vodka" and bartenders would look at me strange and say something like "we dont have redbull here".

2. I've had the extraordinary good luck to visit "red bull island": a private island resort called Laucala, one of the Fiji islands. The owner is the German co-founder. Every mini fridge is stocked with... red bull.

Red Bull does not invest in sponsorships, they invest in creating 'history'. This is an example of Red Bull creating history.

They do this also by buying sports teams. You can blow 200M on side line advertising throughout several soccer seasons, or you can buy an entire soccer team. When that team wins, you build history.

Its brilliant marketing.

I have to admit, Red Bull really knows how to spend their sponsorship dollars.

I practice and am a big fan of two sports they sponsor heavily: skateboarding and auto racing.

They sponsor some of the absolute best and "real" skaters, including Jamie Foy and Zion Wright, among others. They aren't corporate or try to mold fiercely independent skaters into an image. They just pay the best skaters in the world to wear their logo. They also pay to build some of the best skateparks/obstacle courses in the world by sponsoring some of the contest series.

In auto racing they sponsor the iconic Red Bull Racing team, headed by an absolute troll of a human being but also insanely successful. They have the best aerodynamicist in racing history (Adrian Newey) and some of the best drivers in the world. They won 4 straight championships with Seb Vettel, and now look poised to finally challenge Mercedes' dominance this year.

I personally don't drink any energy drink besides coffee, but two of the big things I'm passionate about are the better for Red Bull's involvement.

Always funny to read accounts of Red Bull's history which mention that people hate the taste. I recently overcame a 20-year daily addiction to Red Bull (thanks COVID, I guess – only a forced 2-week quarantine keeping me away from the shop worked) and my dependence was based on its taste. It couldn't have been the ingredients, because similar energy drinks just didn’t do it for me. At a certain point I was wishing that all food tasted like Red Bull, and that’s when I decided that my consumption might be a problem.

Back in 2000 I went to the Edinburgh film festival. There was buzz about a film called “Battle Royale”. None of us had any clue what to expect. But one of things I remember to this day about the experience was they served the audience Red Bull and Vodka — and the Red Bull was in these commemorative cans. Brilliant marketing, all the way back then.

Everyone was ordering Red Bull and Vodka all week. There were lots of tales about people having heart attacks from that combo (not that week, but from around that time). I wonder how true those stories were — or if they were mostly urban legends spread by the company themselves to seem more powerful, and appeal to young thrill seekers.

For anyone travelling to Southeast Asia, I strongly urge you to try out Krating Daeng, the predecessor of Red Bull. It's an interesting experience in that it's both similar yet completely different — and not carbonated. Whatever the reason, almost all energy drinks and the like are carbonated in the west. It's an interesting contrast and well worth the try.

The marketing side is pretty impressive, but it seems like the logistics side might be even more impressive. I'm not sure how they manage this, but it's the only consumer product that seems to be virtually impossible to purchase in bulk at a reduced price, at least in any quantity below a full pallet. The price per can is remarkably consistent even in widely varying geographic areas.

I never realized it, but Red Bull spends money similarly to Google's early days. They have their "cash cow" revenue stream and a bunch of seemingly unrelated explorations that may burn capital or prove to diversify the portfolio.

By keeping the logo so prevalent, it mitigates customers from developing brand judgments. I'm not going to judge a coworker for drinking a Red Bull because the brand is equally associated with European soccer, quirky commercials, flugtag, and celebrity. In the same way, Google became associated with Google Earth, Google Glass, lush office campuses, and "don't be evil" (remember those days?).

“Like one of Darwin's long-beaked finches, Red Bull bears the marks of a business with one specific attribute selected for over and over again: garnering attention.”

Red Bull is one of the greatest examples of successful marketing of all times. They brought extreme sports to the forefront of mainstream media and have built a brand like no one else. Before Red Bull people didn't really know much about various niche extreme sports, but today everyone knows what a wing suit it, what base jumping is, big wave riding or the that you can fly with a jet pack next to real fighter jets.

Maybe it is behind the paywall but one interesting technique used by Red Bull is that they marketed themselves as a hard drug.

Red Bull is actually a rather tame drink. It has a lot of caffeine, but not more than a typical cup of coffee. It has a few fancy ingredients like taurine, but these don't amount to much. If anything, the most harmful/addictive ingredient of it is sugar, and the actual "energy" part of it.

But it is the way they marketed it. It "gives you wings". They have representatives give out the first dose for free at schools. It is associated with the rave subculture. It is sometimes consumed in association with alcohol. If people didn't know it was just a soft drink, they would think about something like ecstasy.

And it worked. People bought these overpriced soft drink cans as some kind of forbidden substance with powerful effects, kids loved that. I was one of these kids BTW.

I worked somewhat too well as government banned them in some countries, before they realized wasn't as harmful as it sounded, so they reverted to taxing it. Fun fact, in France (I don't know about other countries), they made a special tax for energy drinks, defined as soft drinks with more than a certain amount of caffeine. As a response, Red Bull silently reduced their amount of caffeine in order to stay under the limit, making it barely higher than a typical soft drink.

In the town that I live in, Red Bull is the sponsor of what they call "The World's Toughest Hard Enduro Rallye". Every year it draws a crowd of tourists to the city and produces some great entertainment. https://www.redbullromaniacs.com/

The 2+ hour documentary about the Red Bull jump from space project was great -- lots of low budget space engineering fun.

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/films/mission-to-the-edge-of-s...

I never really bothered with it in my youth. Now I'm nudging 50, there's many a bike achieved with red bull & ibuprofen.

i dont mind the taste, but the the smell is pungent and it always repeats on me something awful.

RedBull is a master class in marketing, from top to bottom.

I'm a fan of multiple big projects of Red Bull, including Formula 1, skydiving and Flugtag.

I've honestly looked for ways to support their activities, as I enjoy this "advertising", but dislike their drink.