For a company which – let’s be perfectly frank – makes and sells what in effect is a soft drink – Red Bull knows a lot about ‘the media.’
Case in point, Red Bull-sponsored F2 and DTM driver Liam Lawson (and you can check out the impact the young Kiwi has had in his Red Bull-liveried Ferrari 488 in the DTM in his rookie year here:
At Germany’s famous Hockenheim circuit over the weekend just passed, you see, 19-year-old GT3 class rookie Lawson scored a 4th and a 2nd pace to further extend his lead in the 2021 championship points standings with just one more round to go, this coming weekend at the Norisring street circuit in Nuremberg
And I know this because? Because for years now Red Bull has been doing the media’s job for it. And reaping the benefits.
Let me explain!
Apparently, company founder, Austrian marketing guru Dietrich Mateschitz, believed, right from the start, that buying advertising space – be it on TV, in a newspaper, magazine or even on a roadside billboard – was a waste of money.
Better, he reasoned, to spend what little money he had (this would have been back in the mid-1980s) for sales and marketing on creating stand-alone extreme (community or sports-based) events, which – so the theory went – would be reported by the very TV stations, newspapers and magazines who wanted his ads BUT as part of their news bulletins, adding an immediate legitimacy both to the then new concept of a caffeine-rich energy drink and his Red Bull brand……. which you simply cannot get in a plain, simple old advertisement.
To say that the strategy worked is something of an understatement. Though, obviously, he has changed his mind regarding TV – and the odd print ad – Mateschitz now uses outright ownership of some teams (think Red Bull Racing, and Scuderia AlphaTauri in F1), sponsorship of teams (think the Red Bull Ampol Supercars team) and individuals (Supercars’ standout Shane Van Gisbergen, Drifter Mad Mike Whiddett, and the subject of this week’s column, Liam Lawson) to help spread the word.
He can because he is now operating in a very different world, one – with 7.9 billion cans of Red Bull sold in 2020 alone – is literally awash with the stuff, and the cold, hard currency, sales of that sort of magnitude generate.
Even, for instance, if he only made – say – 40 cents profit on each can that’s……let’ see, $2.8 billion dollars, not bad work if you can get it in anyone’s language.
New Zealand – and New Zealand ‘athletes’ have enjoyed support via ‘sampling opportunities, assistance in organising media-attractive events, and plain, simple old sponsorship for over 20 years now, thanks to a chance ‘sampling opportunity’ of his own by the enterprising bloke who introduced Kiwis to Red Bull bakcintehmd-1990s, Josef Roberts (now CEO of Burger Fuel), then (just another young) Aucklander on his OE.
Impressed both by the taste and hangover-clearing ability of the ‘something non-alcoholic-please’ drink he asked for while on a skiing trip to Slovenia in 1995 Roberts successful sought the rights to distribute the new Austrian ‘Energy Drink’ here and in Australia, and landed his first pallet n 1996.
Because to recoup his investment and buy more, he had to sell each can for (from memory) $5-$6 Roberts initially marketed it to bars and nightclubs as a ready-made mixer for cocktails and it was as this that I remember tasting Red Bull for the first time.
Kiwis being Kiwis, however, it didn’t take long for the concept of an ‘Energy Drink’ to catch on and when he was able, eventually, to mix the ingredients and ‘can’ it here Roberts began to see the rewards for his foresight, eventually selling both the Kiwi and Aussie companies he originally set up, back to Red Bull for what some wag in the industry described as ‘a pretty penny’ back in 2002.
By this stage the company was well on its way to becoming a global powerhouse and in November 2004, Mateschitz acquired a F1 team, the former Stewart Grand Prix squad, from owner Jaguar (Ford).
A year later, Red Bull also bought the Minardi team, renaming it Scuderia Toro Rosso and running it as a sort of repository for last season’s technology. The team was rebranded further as Scuderia AlphaTauri in 2020 to reflect Red Bull’s new fashion brand, AlphaTauri.
Developing promising young drivers and helping them both navigate and – perhaps more importantly ‘fund’ – their way ‘up the ladder’ has always been something close to Dietrich Mateschitz’ heart.
Here in New Zealand, we have been incredibly lucky, in fact, to have had two drivers picked up and assisted all the way to F1 – Brendan Hartley, and now – by the look and sound of it – Liam Lawson.
For Hartley – who was one of the many talented youngsters cruelly dropped by programme boss Dr Helmet Marko after a season (2010 Formula Renault 3.5) when he failed to win a race – there were apparently no bad feelings and Marko put him into a Toro Rosso car for the end-of-season USGP in 2107 then – in theory anyway – a full season in 2018.
That was as good as it got for the Le Mans 24 Hour race winner, however, the team replacing his with London-born Thai driver Alexander Albon for 2019.
Which brings me back, as it turns out, to the headline of this story, and the fact that Red Bull is doing Liam Lawson proud; thanks in no small part to one of the other strings to its media bow, the Red Bull Content Pool.
If you are a working freelancer like my good self the ‘Pool is literally the answer to your dreams – up-to-the-minute race reports, cool, little features and now YouTube videos, all ‘free-to-use’ for editorial purposes.
Sure, you don’t have to wait for long before someone cracks open a can of Red Bull. But for people like us, who – for years – have been starved of even the most basic of information on how ‘our lads’ are doing when they venture ’up over’ to advance their careers it is small price to pay for such free, ‘fly on-the-wall’ access.
As it has turned out Liam and Red Bull-backed F1 driver and DTM teammate Alexander Albon have Chemistry with a capital C on screen and I have become as much a fan of their more free-form videos like this one as I am the basic Red Bull race or event reports like this one (see below)
In saying that here’s my favourite video from the current Liam ‘n Alex series
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