TakeAway: When does a marketing playbook need to be adjusted?
Red Bull may provide us with an example very soon.
The U.S. energy drink category-leader just invested $220M in a struggling MLS team and a massive MLS stadium — an investment in, well, a non-extreme sport that doesn’t exactly match RB’s image.
Soccer sponsorships have worked in other countries, but in the U.S. professional soccer has yet to generate even a fraction of the following that soccer boasts in the rest of the world.
And, it is very unclear how many soccer moms are going to let their young kids embrace this high caffeine drink.
* * * * *
Excerpted from WSJ, “Red Bull’s Latest Buzz: New Soccer Stadium,” By Matthew Futterman, March 18, 2010
There may be easier ways to sell drinks than buying a struggling sports team and building the biggest soccer stadium the country has ever seen atop a former industrial-waste site.
Yet that’s exactly the playbook Austrian “energy drink” maker Red Bull has been following for the past four years. The strategy will be unleashed this [last] weekend when the $220 million Red Bull Arena opens in Harrison, N.J. …
The team [New York Red Bulls] and stadium represent the biggest and most visible foreign investment ever made in professional soccer in the U.S.— even as closely held Red Bull had flat revenue and faces challenges from rivals like Monster Energy, distributed by Coke, and Rockstar, distributed by Pepsi.
“As soon as we decide to take part in a sport, we either do it properly or we don’t do it at all.”
Still, 15 years into its existence, Major League Soccer boasts just two profitable teams, and a labor dispute with players has jeopardized the current season. The Red Bulls themselves … have been something of a flop …
The venture is in keeping with the unorthodox marketing moves — including a festival for homemade flying machines and a half-pipe built for Olympic snowboarder Shaun White — Red Bull has become known for since its emergence in Europe in the late 1980s …
“Edgy marketing is part of this category, and they’re the grand-daddy of energy drinks,” says publisher of Beverage Digest. “They’ve done a great job building their brand both here and in Europe.”
Red Bull’s brand strength allowed it to outpace the industry last year in the U.S., when the premium-priced energy-drink market was growing at just 0.1% and Red Bull sales were up 1.1% …
In the U.S., Red Bull has a 33% share of the energy-drink market by dollars, ahead of Coke’s Monster, which has a 27% share and holds second place. But Monster has been gaining with the help of its parent company, as has Pepsi’s Rockstar.
Red Bull wields its identity as a rebellious category creator, associating itself mostly with activities and athletes that display a mix of courage and daring, such as Shawn White, the snowboarder sometimes known as the “Flying Tomato” for his shoulder-length red hair.
Other sports stars the company favors include airborne surfers, dirt bikers, skiers, stunt specialists or race-car drivers more obsessed with speed than grounded team-sport athletes.
It’s rare to see a Red Bull commercial on television — though the brand still gets plenty of play, whether it’s Britney Spears photographed drinking it or Lindsey Vonn sporting its logo on her helmet …
Within the stadium, the company’s logo —two bulls butting horns in front of a yellow sun—is emblazoned on the lower-deck seats. Where some companies might have plastered billboards throughout the building, Red Bull CEO says the idea is to build his brand through the quality of the experience the arena offers …
This project was about soccer … And selling caffeinated drinks.
“Everything that we do is for the value and the image of the brand.”
Edit by TJS
* * * * *
Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704059004575127842812699832.html
* * * * *
SHARE THIS POST WITH FRIENDS & FAMILY
The Homa Files 