Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris

Undergraduate Journal

Manuscript 1136

MLCP of Red Bull

Micah Winningham

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Part of the Advertising and Promotion Management Commons, Organizational Communication

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 Winningham: MLCP of Red Bull

MLCP of Red Bull

Micah Winningham

Red Bull is a marketer and distributor of one of the first major sports drinks to be introduced into
the world, called the same name: Red Bull energy. Since the inception of the drink in the mid
1980’s by Dietrich Mateschitz in Austria as an attempt to create an alternative to coffee, the
drink and brand of the Red Bull organization have exploded into one of the most popular and
recognizable organizations of all time. The brand pushes the idea of their product giving the
greatest boost of energy, and their slogan “Red Bull gives you wings!” reinforces the idea to
consumers; with their drink, anything is possible. This has encouraged the global love of Red
Bull from consumers, and the drink is sure to be found anywhere you go from grocery stores to
gas station convenience stores.

DESCRIPTION

As far as communication to the consumers goes, Red Bull leads the way. The Red Bull
organization as of 2023 owns 15 professional sports teams across 11 different sports, i.e. FC Red
Bull Salzburg, New York Red Bulls, Red Bull Racing (Formula 1) reaching hundreds of
thousands of fans from across the world. Red Bull is also known for sponsoring insane extreme
sports stunts such as the famous Red Bull Stratos jump done by Felix Baumgartner in 2012, at a
height of 121,000 feet to a livestream of 8 million live viewers. Red Bull spent about 100 million
dollars on advertising in the last year alone including the sponsorships and sports teams. Red
Bull puts a lot of effort into marketing with their media company Red Bull Media House which
is a multi-platform media company. They use Red Bull Media House to cover the extreme sports
stunts whether it be snowboarding or surfing and post it all over social media. Although $100
million is a lot for advertising, the shares and likes of these posts on social media make that
money back plus much more when viewers become consumers.

ANALYSIS

Some of the patterns I’ve been finding with Red Bull and their communication is the message
that Red Bull = Extreme, and they sell that to the customer. Whether it be the slogan “Red Bull
gives you wings”, or the extreme sports campaigns they do, or the owning of professional sports
teams winning big games, they always sell the ‘extreme’ aspect. When someone thinks of Red
Bull, they think big, exciting, fast paced. When you see an Instagram reel of a parasailer landing
on a mountain with skis and traversing the steep banks with a Red Bull logo on his helmet, you
want to be a part of that. Red Bull communicates the energy of their product through patterns
such as that - showing the public what it means to drink Red Bull, promising them wings to
compete at the highest level and seize the day.

INTERPRETATION

The basis of Red Bull’s communication strategy to their consumers is to promote the
extremeness of their product which in turn gets their name back out there into the public sphere
and equates their product with the extreme stunts they sponsor to advertise themselves. This is an

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example of a communication as a verb-tension “organizations are maintained in and through

communicative processes that recurrently reinstantiate their existence” from Schoeneborn et al.
Communicative Constitution of Organization. (Dougherty, Chapter 3) An example of this again
is the Stratosphere Jump from Felix Baumgartner which hit a record for live viewers on
YouTube with over 8 million live viewers.

Red Bull is also a global organization with popularity in every country, proving its global
communication with the ownership and sponsoring of multiple different sports organizations in
multiple different countries which involves different cultures. Cultures as Communication
(Dougherty, Chapter 3) can tie into this part of the interpretation because it shows the change of
Red Bull in certain areas (such as supporting the popular sports teams of different countries)
such as the different ways they use the culture to directly advertise for themselves based off
popularities in certain cultures - Soccer in Europe, F1 racers in southern Europe,
Skiers/Snowboarders in the U.S. which is mostly non-verbal communication through
advertisement, showing the local communities they should associate Red Bull with their favorite
hobbies.

The last part of Red Bull’s communication that I would like to focus on is Scheinenborn’s three
layers of communication with artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. For an artifact,
Red Bull does its famous extreme stunts (Schoeneborn 2022). For espoused values, Red Bull
focuses on promising its consumers with extreme energy and focus - giving them “wings'.
Finally for basic assumptions, it is the unchanging belief that Red Bull will always give the
consistent promise that their product will always give the consumers the energy boost they are
looking for (Dougherty, Chapter 3, Keyton).

EVALUATION

Red Bull targets communication with itself and potential customers through theories of non-
verbal communication for the majority of its advertising. Instead communication is done through
the hobbies of what their main demographic of customers would be partaking in. i.e. Skiing,
skydiving, intense sports, normal sports, and athletic publicity stunts. The strategy of
communicating is brilliant due to the fact that even people who have no care about sports or
energy drinks will tune in to huge publicity stunts which will burn the image of Red Bull in their
mind, and wondering what “Red Bull gives you wings” truly means. I believe that this strategy
combined with the cultural differences in the areas where Red Bull is leading the energy drink
market, (Europe, North America, UK) is brilliant - as they sponsor the teams and or
organizations in these areas that are popular by putting the Red Bull logo on jerseys, racecars,
and helmets. All of these serve as advertising along with the 5 second YouTube shorts with old-
style stick figures and toucans which sing the phrase “Red Bull gives you wings” I believe in
terms of communicating, Red Bull does it simplistically and uses the surrounding culture
(popular sports teams/ events) and the basic human ‘want’ to have “wings” to do anything they
set their mind to. Overall, from a consumer point of view, it’s hard not to want to try the drink at
least once.

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DOI: 10.61366/2576-2176.1136 2
 Winningham: MLCP of Red Bull

ENGAGEMENT

As an energy drink brand targeting athletes who seek the boost of energy to compete in extreme
sports, I see that Red Bull does this extremely effectively by consistently associating their brand
with extreme sports. When people think about where to get a perfect burst of energy from an
outside source, Red Bull is usually the first thing people think about. I would like to make some
slight suggestions at this stage to further improve the communication habits. This is again an
example of Red Bull being a verb-tension organization. “Organizations are maintained in and
through communicative processes that recurrently re-instantiate their existence” from
Schoeneborn et al. Communicative Constitution of Organization. (Dougherty, Chapter 3) that
was talked about in stage 3 of the process. I believe that Red Bull could do an even better job by
sponsoring another big public stunt similar to the 2011 Strato-jump that Red Bull sponsored, as
they mostly stick to Instagram reels and Tik Tok for publicity now.

I would also like to see Red Bull continue pursuing entering themselves and becoming part of
other cultures as they have been doing with multi-national professional sports teams and the
sponsorships/ownership involved. Cultures as Communication (Dougherty, Chapter 3) ties into
this “because it shows the change of Red Bull in certain areas (such as supporting the popular
sports teams of different countries) such as the different ways they use the culture to directly
advertise for themselves based off popularities in certain cultures - Soccer in Europe, F1 racers in
southern Europe, Skiers/Snowboarders in the U.S. which is mostly non-verbal communication
through advertisement, showing the local communities they should associate Red Bull with their
favorite hobbies.” - from Stage 3, but I recommend Red Bull begin this same strategy into other
continents such as Asia or South America since they are mainly based in the U.S. and
Europe/Middle East as far as sports sponsorships are concerned. I believe that buy purchasing a
sports team in Asia, it would only help grow their brand even more multinationally and
culturally.

Red Bull exceeds communication expectations using Schein’s three layers of communication
with artifacts (visual organization), espoused values (strategies, goals), and basic assumptions
(unconscious beliefs within the organization). For an artifact, Red Bull sponsors its famous
extreme stunts which I believe they should get back to doing more often. (Schoeneborn 2022)
For espoused values, Red Bull focuses on promising its consumers with extreme energy and
focus - giving them “wings” which is a great slogan as it non-verbally enables and promises its
consumers something. Finally for basic assumptions, it is the unchanging belief that Red Bull
will always give the consistent promise that their product will always give the consumers the
energy boost they are looking for. (Dougherty, Chapter 3, Keyton) If I were to change anything
else about Red Bull, I would suggest they advertise their different flavors more - communicating
that they don’t only rely on one specific flavor of energy drink but that they experiment with
different flavors on nearly a monthly basis. I believe communication on social media through
advertisements for summer flavors would help consumers who aren't into athletics choose Red
Bull more often.

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CONCLUSION

Red Bull boldly fronts the energy drink market with their top tier communication to the
consumers about what their product provides and delivers upon what’s expected of them. The
MLCP process shows me as a reviewer of Red Bull the levels of what goes on ‘behind the
scenes’. The techniques of their advertising by using extreme stunts, the live streams,
professional sports teams, all of it communicates what and who Red Bull is.

https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/horizons
DOI: 10.61366/2576-2176.1136 4
 Winningham: MLCP of Red Bull

REFERENCES

Bergstrom, Breonna. (2022, September 19). Red Bull Marketing Strategy. CoSchedule Blog.
https://coschedule.com/marketing-strategy/marketing-strategy-examples/red-bull-
marketing-strategy

Campbell, R. (2018). MEDIA & CULTURE : Mass Communication in a digital age. Bedford/St.
Martin’s. (MLCP Process)

Dougherty, D. S. (2022). Sexual Harassment in Organizational Culture. Cognella Academic

Publishing.

Dudovskiy, J. (2016, July 7). Red Bull Marketing Communication Mix. Research-Methodology.
https://research-methodology.net/red-bull-marketing-communication-mix/

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