Marketing Communication: Research and Planning
Spring exam 2012

Red Bull – The Anti-brand brand
Question 1:
Red Bull was launched in Austria in 1987, and in the 25 years that has passed since then, many things have happened that could and should affect the way Red Bull markets and brands its product as opposed to how it was done in the years after the launch.
All though Red Bull was launched in 1987, it was not until 1992 that the company began expanding its distribution – first to other European countries, Hungary, Slovenia (1992), Germany and Switzerland (1994), and then in 1997 to the US (Kumar et al 2005: 3). In the 1990s, the general consumer trend in the markets that Red Bull entered into was that the more you spend the
Viral marketing is harder to control than traditional marketing partly because of the speed and precision with which the information travels. This means that any information, not just the positive, will spread quickly, making damage control difficult for the unfortunate marketer, whose product has in some way fallen into disgrace (Silverman 2003).

The market that Red Bull entered into in 1987 is a far cry from the current one, in that Red Bull was the pioneer in energy drinks. Before 1987, the market was none-existent. Today, however, it is ever expanding, and the competition is fierce (Kumar et al 2005: 8-9). Through the 1990s and the 2000s, the energy drinks market has seen constant growth, however, in recent years; growth has slowed somewhat in the core markets, the US, the UK and Australia. Growth in the UK in 2010 was 7% and 3 % in the US (Euromonitor 2011b & Euromonitor 2011c). Red Bull has managed to hold on to its position as the number one energy drink in all three core markets, and in general, growth in the energy drinks market has been far above the average growth in the overall soft drinks market. This, however, has led to increased competition from heavy-weight competitors such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, who have both launched sports drinks to compete with Red Bull (Euromonitor 2012d).
A final change that seems to be worth mentioning is the huge focus on the obesity epidemic that has hit the western world and