The story behind Red Bull
In this article we want to tell you about a company that revolutionized the world of food & beverage with a drink that no one knew they wanted to drink and for which there was no market … no matter if you like Red Bull or not. product or as a company: it is a story that reminds us that looking positively to the future is the best way to achieve great results!
It took Mr. Red Bull, Dietrich Mateschitz, about ten years to graduate in Economics and Commerce, more busy juggling the Viennese university parties than between books and didactic lessons. Only twenty years later he found himself at the head of an empire, valued at billions of dollars, capable of distributing the famous strawberry drink in over 170 countries around the world.
How did he do? It created a need, which, at least in the Western world, no one knew they had.
Red Bull is not an original drink in an absolute sense. In the Eastern world, products of this type were very popular among those who carried out the most demanding jobs to combat fatigue or among drivers to avoid the danger of falling asleep while driving. Mateschitz tasted the drink that changed his life, and that of many people, during one of his trips to the East. On the first sip there are many versions. We mention only two: the most romantic one tells of a Mateschitz struggling with jet lag who tried Krating Daeng, a drink sold in pharmacies as an energizing tonic, and after a while he felt reborn. The more pragmatic version instead tells of a Mateschitz who, reading an article on the major Japanese taxpayers, discovered the company Taisho Pharmaceutical, manufacturer of Lipovitan, an energy drink.
Regardless of how things really went, Mateschitz began a study on Asian energy drinks in order to bring a type of product that no one knew yet to Europe.
No one would have bet a euro on the fact that Red Bull Gmbh, founded in 1984, would change the history of commercial drinks.
There were two substantial problems: there was no need and there was no market. “Is there no market for our product? No problem, we will create it ”, Mateschitz loved to say at that stage. This belief was so ingrained in him that he didn’t even believe the absolutely negative market research that indicated anything but Red Bull was going to be a boom.
To these substantial problems were added practical problems: in the East this type of product was sold in pharmacies. The Austrian authorities frightened by the risk of a possible addiction, due to the caffeine and taurine content, imposed the passing of numerous scientific tests. The marketing of Red Bull in Austria was only possible after 3 years … in 1987.
Another problem was the taste, which had to be westernized… just think that the oriental energy drinks were free of carbon dioxide, more like a cough syrup than a soft drink.
A differentiating aspect and certainly decisive for the success of Red Bull is certainly the logo, two red bulls that are gored. It was created by an old friend of Mateschitz, owner of an advertising agency, who after agreeing to be paid on delivery was refused about fifty proposals before proposing the logo we all know and the famous slogan: wings “.
But not everyone agreed to be paid on delivery, and Mateschitz received numerous rejections from Austrian bottlers who were not interested in what appeared to be a doomed project. Fortunately Rauch, the largest producer of soft drink containers in Austria, trusted the project and gave life to the thin blue and silver can, famous all over the world and fundamental to the success of Red Bull: a unique container for a revolutionary product.
But it doesn’t stop there, because once the chrome cans were produced, nobody wanted to know about selling the cans, much less buying them: people didn’t appreciate the taste, the name and the Red Bull logo.
The spread only started thanks to the clubbers, who noticed the revitalizing qualities of the drink and started promoting it at parties, straight or mixed with super-alcoholic drinks.
The first year of marketing about a million cans with the red bull were sold, at the end of the third year it is estimated that in the German market alone one million cans a day were sold… the need had been created. It took a few years to create a real market, but today there are over one hundred energy drinks in the West … But don’t worry, because as Mateschitz says: “when you like Rolex you want the original one, not the fake one in Taiwan “.
In the 1990s, Red Bull’s popularity grew dramatically to become a status symbol: “Red Bull is not a drink, it’s a lifestyle” Coach Red Bull likes to repeat today. And this is also thanks to non-traditional marketing strategies. The flagship of the marketing activity focused on sports is the Formula 1 team, winner of 4 consecutive world championships, but there are also several football teams and other sports sponsored by Red Bull. Red Bull also has a world-class leadership on extreme sports. Who could sponsor an enterprise like that of Felix Baumgartner, capable of launching from 36,600 meters to break the sound barrier? Only Red Bull, the same company that from a can sold in a pharmacy in the East has built a need, a market and an empire.
We at Bivo are not Red Bull, we make a different product and the motivations behind our project are very different. Their story, however, we are passionate about, precisely because it is a product that was invented from scratch. Our goal with Bivo, a product equally started from scratch, is to spread the use of environmentally sustainable, healthy and Made in Italy food. If you are curious to try Bivo, you can use the discount code “IORESTOINFORMA” to be entitled to a 10% discount on the first order:
