How Red Bull used psychology to build a $10B brand
How Red Bull used psychology to build a $10B brand
Hi all, Jen here :)
One of the most impactful people in marketing (and sports) has died: Dietrich Mateschitz.
You might not know his name, but you know his brand - Red Bull
And the story of how he grew Red Bull into a $10B brand is a masterclass in customer psychology.
In 1987, the Austrian entrepreneur was attempting to launch a new kind of product in Europe.
It was an energy drink he'd come across during a business trip to Thailand.
The category was completely new - there was no such thing as an "energy drink" in the US or Europe (despite their popularity in East Asia).
When he entered the Western market, Dietrich only had two things:
A tagline ("Red Bull gives you wings")
A customer research report that said his potential customers hated the product.
But Mateschitz was determined that the brand would succeed.
Red Bull had a tiny marketing budget, so they had to get creative.
First, Mateschitz hired students to work as Red Bull ambassadors on college campuses.
This gave the brand a foothold, but Dietrich had bigger ambitions for Red Bull.
For it to become as big as he knew it could be, he had to take on some of the most powerful brands on Earth - Coca-Cola and Pepsi (both famous for their sports marketing).
But Red Bull couldn’t afford to sponsor a Premier League football team or an NFL franchise.
So they started reaching out to young and hungry "extreme athletes" who were often overlooked by big brands and their big budgets.
Dietrich knew this would work, because he knew three things about customer psychology:
Getting attention for a brand is much easier when it's a part of something attention-grabbing (like extreme sports).
The more emotional a moment is, the more likely we are to remember it.
When a brand grabs our attention AND our emotions, it lodges itself in our memories. And when a brand is stuck in your brain, you're much more likely to buy it.
Dietrich Mateschitz knew (consciously or not) that the emotions we experience watching death-defying sports could cement Red Bull into our brains.
And this insight into memory and human behavior helped build a $10B brand.
If you want your brand to stick in people's minds like Red Bull, start by asking yourself:
What emotions do people feel in association with our brand? Like Red Bull, you might choose excitement or adrenaline. Like Coca-Cola, you might choose happiness. Like Disney, you might choose the magic of childhood.
How consistently are we using our brand images and words during these emotional moments? Red Bull wouldn't have been as successful in building its brand if it had redesigned its logo or can every five years. It takes a long time to get people to remember a brand - and it's 100x harder if the message, logo, or product is constantly changing.
Until next time,
Jen
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