MG412 Principles of Marketing: Red Bull Marketing Report

Segmentation

Demographic segmentation: The Red Bull brand resonates strongly with students and working professionals, in the combined Generation Z and Millennial age group, comprising 18-34 year-olds. A Statista survey shows that Red Bull is the main preferred energy drink in the US, and this preference is split between male and female consumer respondents at 19.5% and 16.2% respectively (Statista Research Department, 2016). Furthermore, these consumers can live intense lifestyles due to higher education or professional job obligations, which may lead to Red Bull consumption for its energy effects (Scales, 2023). As such, the education and occupation context shows it is consumed by such customers who undergo such intense educational or professional responsibilities.

Geographic segmentation: In the US, since Red Bull is mostly consumed by students and professionals, the geographic segmentation covers college towns and urban cities, where urban employment is strongest together with the clustering of colleges and other learning institutions (PR Newswire, 2022). Furthermore, due to students and workers migrating to other cities for their educational and professional obligations, the geographic segmentation is mainly from the country-centric position here.

Psychographic segmentation: Red Bull consumers live an active and outgoing lifestyle, characterised by the context of consumers being students or professional employees. Red Bull consumption in this segmentation can overlap other situational lifestyle factors (Scales, 2023). For example, Red Bull is popularly used in mixing alcoholic beverages in the US. Since younger people are more outgoing in venues like concerts and clubs, Red Bull usage may be greater or more habitual in such situations (Goldfarb, 2018).

Behavioural segmentation: Red Bull consumers prefer to drink it for its energy-enhancing properties, such as caffeine and taurine (Alford et al., 2001). It is commonly seen that Red Bull tastes less palatable than rival drinks like Monster due to less sugar content (27.5g vs 55g sugar per can), indicating the perception of more authenticity in Red Bull as a leading energy drink brand (G&G FMCG, 2022). This perceived benefit is compounded by the marketing activities for Red Bull to increase engagement with customers. This is clarified in the Marketing Mix section of the report.

Targeting

Red Bull targets this segment of 18-34-year-old customers through diverse avenues (Garwood, 2022). Sales and marketing teams of Red Bull engage these customers online through social media platforms, forums and other online platforms, due to 18-34-year-olds being more actively online regularly (Mintel, 2024). Moreover, the brand messaging uniformity is preserved due to Red Bull being relevant in different generational contexts. For example, Red Bull’s association with adventure lifestyle and sports flows from Millennials to competitive esports gaming tournaments for younger Generation Z customers (Dsouza, 2022). This shows the uniformity of the brand’s inclusion in these different generations.

Positioning

The perceptual map below visualises the brand’s positioning against rivals like Monster’s energy drinks, particularly for both individual and party-type usage scenarios. In doing so, it highlights the use of Red Bull as premium and community-aligned, for parties and other occasions arising from brand recognition of Red Bull.

(Source: https://portfolio.cept.ac.in/2022/M/fd/brand-building-through-spatial-design-ir3002-monsoon-2022/redbull-oasis-monsoon-2022-ug180058)

Marketing Mix

Product

The product analysis below is based on Levitt’s concept of the total product (Levitt, 1981).

Generic product: The core product benefit is listed in the ingredient profile of Red Bull, featuring ingredients like caffeine and taurine (Alford et al., 2001). This communicates the benefits of consuming Red Bull for customers seeking an energy boost.

Expected product: Red Bull is offered in different flavours outside of the standard flavour, which comes in a blue can. Other flavoured variants feature different coloured cans, such as the Red Edition for watermelon flavour, and the Green Edition for the cactus fruit flavour. Seasonal editions rotate across Summer, Winter and Spring editions, and all editions contain the same core benefit with additional flavours to satisfy diverse expectations for tastes and preferences.

Augmented product: The Red Bull logo is labelled on each can of Red Bull energy drink, featuring two bulls appearing to tackle each other. The logo is red and yellow, which contrasts strongly to show the expectations of energy from consuming it since the red colour is associated with a heightened impression among consumers (Boston College, 2011).

Potential product: The main message of the Red Bull energy drink is in the tagline "Red Bull gives you wings" (Bustin et al., 2015). This underlines the ultimate benefit of receiving a high energy boost for consumers upon drinking Red Bull and carries the association of a heightened lifestyle experience as a consequence. Based on product augmentation, the potential is also realised.

In addition, Aaker’s framework is applied below to understand the brand’s personality (Aaker, 1997).

Sincerity: The Red Bull brand is shown as genuine, due to the synergy of the brand’s logo, the labelling of Red Bull being appreciated by normal consumers and top athletes, and the transparent declaration of energy-boosting ingredients in the product label.

Excitement: Similarly, the marketing activities associated with Red Bull make it an exciting brand in the image of consumers, such as sponsorship of Red Bull with sports events like Formula One (Red Bull Racing, 2024).

Competence: Red Bull's continued strength as a brand makes it carry the image of reliability, from the perspective of brand competence. Therefore, it retains brand awareness strongly among US customers before other brands like Monster.

Sophistication: As Red Bull prioritises ruggedness, the sophistication aspect is less evident, since the product is meant to be accessible to normal consumers while being promoted by sponsorships with top athletes and other athletic celebrities.

Ruggedness:  The can labels that Red Bull is appreciated by top athletes, among normal people like students and professional workers (Red Bull, 2024). This augments the lifestyle association of normal consumers to associate Red Bull with top athletes.

Price

Red Bull is sold in the $2 range per can for the smallest size of 250ml. Larger sizes have incrementally more cost, and Red Bull is often sold in large 6, 12 or 24-pack cases due to the regular consumption habits of customers (Red Bull, 2024). This also makes it accessible for other situations, such as bulk purchases to use Red Bull for mixing drinks at concerts, home parties or other venues.

Place

Red Bull is available from physical retailers like Target stores, to digital sales platforms like Amazon. In the US, the strong availability of Red Bull is also present in online channels of physical retailers like Target and Walmart (Yeomans, 2021). This makes Red Bull easy to purchase at any given time or situation.

Promotion

Red Bull is uniquely promoted from both conventional marketing activities, such as television ads and print media content, to PR events in particular. Red Bull was globally promoted in the Red Bull Stratos project, where skydiver Felix Baumgartner performed a high-altitude free fall dive from 39 kilometres above the surface (BBC News, 2012). The event was viewed live by over 8 million people globally, demonstrating strong outreach. Further promotions are evident in sports like Formula One (BBC News, 2012).

Conclusion and Recommendations

In summary, Red Bull has successfully used the Marketing Mix elements to define the brand's marketing identity to the target market consumers, by emphasising the high-energy lifestyle associated with the Red Bull consumption experience. The labelling of the product, the logo and brand sponsorships supported these findings, and the application of the 4Ps Marketing Mix has been consistently successful since Red Bull energy drinks are also affordable.

In recommendations, Red Bull can diversify its products to make different energy-consumable products for customers who may not prefer to drink the large volume of Red Bull in liquid form. For example, Red Bull-branded chewing gum can be complementary for consumers who prefer eating over drinking when it comes to consuming energy-boosting consumables (Barreto et al., 2022). This can also be expanded to other Red Bull-type products, such as flavoured energy vape devices for those consumers who use e-cigarettes to receive energy-boosting effects.

Secondly, Red Bull can localise the flavours to market the product in global markets as well. Since the US Market options are fully saturated due to strong availability and the core market position of the US, diversification will help find new market segments and other insights arising from diversifying the brand’s global positioning.

References

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Barreto, G., Loureiro, L.M.R., Reis, C.E.G. and Saunders, B. (2022). Effects of Caffeine Chewing Gum Supplementation on Exercise performance: a Systematic Review and meta-analysis. European Journal of Sport Science, [online] 23(5), pp.1–12. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2022.2049885.

BBC News (2012). Skydiver Baumgartner sets YouTube live view record. BBC News. [online] 15 Oct. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19947159 [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024].

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Dsouza, R. (2022). Esports sponsorships give Red Bull wings. [online] business.yougov.com. Available at: https://business.yougov.com/content/46071-esports-sponsorships-give-red-bull-wings [Accessed 1 Nov. 2024].

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