Red Bull Trash-Can Marketing |
| Credit: MarqueEx |
Introduction
• Red Bull is regarded as one of the best-selling energy drink in the world. It was founded on 1987 by an Austrian entrepreneur, Dietrich Mateschitz in partnership with Chaleo Yoovidhya (founder of an existing energy drink 'Krating Daeng' in Thailand).
• Red Bull's brand value reached over 12 billion U.S. dollars in 2020, with over 23.3% market share in the US.
• It is almost as well-known for their bold and well publicized marketing as they are for their primary product.
Red Bull's Strategy
• In the late 1980s, Red Bull was the new entrant in the market and was facing a common problem that how they should get people familiar with their brand at scale with a small budget.
• Red Bull bucked the traditional advertising methods and came up with the idea of hacking the attention of people by using trash cans.
• Red Bull strategically placed empty cans of its product in garbage cans outside of popular nightclubs and public places. They'd also put empty cans on the tables of restaurants and clubs that appealed to the demographic they were after.
• This made people believe that there is huge demand for this drink and that's how Red Bull created "an illusion of popularity".
• Consumers came to believe that Red Bull's popularity was due to a reason, and this began to affect their purchasing habits.
Why did this strategy work?
• As marketing generally revolves around getting the attention of your consumer. We have to understand the concept of 'attention economics'.
• In short, attention economics refers to treating consumer attention as rare commodity. It employs economic theory to address a variety of issues, including how to capture attention and persuade consumers to buy your product or service.
• Red Bull had such a thorough understanding of its customers that it knew exactly how to deliver the product to them. The empty cans created 'social proof' for it by creating an illusion that everyone else was drinking Red Bull.
• Social proof in marketing is a psychological and social phenomenon that happens when people assume that the actions of others are correct depending on the frequency of those actions.
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