¶ … energy drink manufacturer Red Bull. Included in this report will be a number of important sections that will detail Red Bull, how they are performing and how they approach doing their business. Inclusive of that will be this brief executive summary, findings and analysis and a conclusion. The findings and analysis will be the bulk of the report. It will include a profile and summary of the company, a SWOT analysis, their marketing mix, a diagram that explains how special events are marked and classified, a classification of at least four Red Bull events that the prior diagram can be used to classify and label and an overall evaluation of Red Bull's marketing and events strategy. The SWOT analysis will show Red Bull's standings as compared and contrasted against their competitors such as PepsiCo, Rockstar and other similar product offerings. The general concept of a marketing mix will be described along with two relevant theories or concepts that can be associated with what Red Bull is doing and why. There will indeed be an explanation that illustrates how Red Bull uses events, promotional activities and targeting of certain audiences to expand their brand and its positive exposure. Even with the good news that Red Bull is encountering, they have encountered some threats and active setbacks and other out-of-place events. The prior mentioned diagram will be used to classify those events and how the impact Red Bull. Findings & Analysis

Red Bull Profile & History

Despite its massive presence in the United States and other areas around the world, Red Bull is actually based out of Austria. The official company name is Red Bull GmbH. They are the market share leader when it comes to energy drinks. In 2014 alone, they sold more than 5.5 billion cans of its beverages and they did so in nearly 170 countries. Their overall revenue haul for those sales amounts to a little over five billion euros. The company was founded in 1984 by two people, those being Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz and Thai Chaleo Yoovidhya. The former used to work for a company called Blendax but he moved to Thailand and ran into Chaleo. The latter was actually already into the energy drink sphere. The drink was known as Krating Daeng and Mateschitz found that the drink reduced the amount of jet lag that he had. Given that, it eventually came to pass that each person invested about half a million dollars and they strived to sell the drink all around Europe. The original drink was modified to make it carbonated and a tad less sugary than it was prior. European launches of the product happened in the 1990's and the United States was entered in 1997. Before long, Red Bull had a commanding share of the American market. The company remains headquartered in Austria, residing in the city of Buschl am See. The company is a conglomerate and is essentially the Austrian version of what is known as a limited liability company (LLC) in the United States (Red Bull 2016; Yahoo Finance 2016).

SWOT Analysis

When it comes to the SWOT analysis for Red Bull, this would stand for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A strength for Red Bull is that they entered the market in the United States and other markets when they were not crowded and they were thus able to snag a lot of market share due to being one of the first main investors on the scene. A weakness for Red Bull would be that there are many governmental and other groups that are trying to connect Red Bull and other energy drinks with health maladies not unlike what happened with ephedra some years ago. To date, none of those initiatives and challenges has been successful but it remains to be seen if that will change. An opportunity for Red Bull is to further branch out in terms of the products they offer. They have already done so in many regards with Simply Cola and their racing sponsorships being two good examples. However, they can and should go further. A threat to Red Bull would be the fact that the market is very crowded now when it comes to energy drinks. Even if one single competitor does not rise as a primary competitor, a group of competitors could collectively sap Red Bull's market share. Even with the bad things within this brief SWOT analysis, the news for Red Bull is mostly good. Even so, things can turn bad in a hurry so Red Bull needs to remain vigilant and attentive to market conditions and shifts even if things seem to be all good (Yahoo Finance, 2016).

Marketing Mix

In general terms, a marketing mix is the combination...

The different methods and means that can be used would include sponsorship of sports teams, social media advertising, newspapers, magazines, television ads, internet site ads, mail campaigns and public events. When it comes to common theories that pertain to marketing mix, the primary question that these sources center on is which source mix should be used and why. More specifically, a question that needs to be posed is what could and should drive the managerial use of financial and marketing metrics when it comes to marketing mix selection and regulation (Mintz & Currim 2013). One important thing that can be a factor are the social and cultural implications when it comes to who is being marketed to. Just one example would be how precisely one would market to Muslims as compared to people that are atheist/agnostic or that adhere to other religions (Abdullah, Hamali & Abdullah 2015). While energy drinks are probably not something that lead to divisiveness and so forth, there are some things that Red Bull is associated with that can present problems of one degree or another. For example, the common practice of mixing Red Bull and liquor is assailed even though Red Bull does not openly advocate doing so.
How Red Bull Can Use its Marketing Mix

Red Bull is already making heavy use of its marketing mix. Indeed, they are definitely one of the more modern companies that exist in that they are much more prone to use online and more modern sources of advertising. Their heavy presence in the race sponsorship market is just one example of this. Further, their as are scattered all over other sporting events, on the common social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and so forth. Red Bull obviously analyzes and assesses its marketing mix and makes adjustments as necessary if some marketing means are not getting the gains that they could or should. A key part of this is querying customers to find out where they found out about Red Bull and why they drink it. It could be a friend that introduced them or it could have been an ad. Red Bully can ask about this and adjust their mixes if they need to. For example, if Twitter is not all that effective but Facebook is the opposite, the company can shift resources from one to the other. A major reason modern/online resources are the more common ones is that the demographics for energy drinks trend younger rather htan older. There are probably at least some older people that drink Red Bull but the vast majority of Red Bull drinkers are probably in their teens, 20's and 30's with perhaps a few 40- and 50-year-old people in the mix. Obviously, Red Bull's marketing mix is going to reflect that. The extracurricular activities that arise outside of just selling energy drinks will reflect that as well. A good example of that would be the racing sponsorships. Many racing fans are younger as well and Red Bully surely knows that full well. They know this and they capitalize it to maximize their exposure with their target markets and demographics.

Diagram Creation

Special Event

Current Impact

Potential Impact

Active?

Litigation about negative effects of energy drinks

Low

High

No

Expansion into China

Moderate

Very High

Yes

New Product Launches

Moderate

High

Yes

There will obviously be events that are predictable but there will be other events that are much less so. As can easily be seen above, an event is named, classified in terms of its current impact, classified in terms of its potential impact and whether the issue is currently an active one. Of course, all of those details are obvious. This diagram should be used internally and with brutal honesty and introspection in mind. While comments to the public and to regulators should be measured (yet completely as defined by the law), what is talked about internally should be based on reality and not on comfortable assumptions. Situations where groupthink or incomplete data are used to assess a company's current situation or its likely or potential future is less than wise.

Diagram in Use

As noted before, Red Bull is not in immediate danger of being deluged by lawsuits due to the contents and effects of its product as it is mostly settled that moderation is all that is needed to prevent those…