SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING PART #1 RED BULL ENERGY DRINK

Hello everybody, welcome back to my communicator's lens. I have to tell you that I’m not a fan of energy drinks but my best friend is. Even though, I don't use energy drinks at all I know a lot about them because of their marketing. For instance, I know about two famous brands: Red Bull and Monster energy drinks. For this block I did a report about social media monitoring of Red Bull and two of its stronger competitors Monster Beverage and Rockstar because I wanted to know how do the energy industry uses social media to attract consumers? 

SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING 

RED BULL ENERGY DRINK AND TWO OF ITS STRONGER COMPETITORS MONSTER BEVERAGE AND ROCKSTAR

The energy drinks industry embraces beverages such as: energy drinks, energy shots and energy drink mixes. Those energy drinks are known as drinks that assurance to give the consumer an extra energy boost. 

They are typically high in caffeine and contain additional ingredients including taurine, guarana and B vitamins. For instance: 

·      Energy shots are a more concentrated form of energy drinks and contain a larger amount of the primary ingredient caffeine. 

·      Energy drink mixes as the third subcategory come packaged as powder and may be mixed with water or juice. 

·      Energy drinks are assumed to be quite popular among younger age groups who mostly consume energy drinks to wake up or stay awake, increase their mental performance or to enable them to concentrate longer in their studies. 

The latest statistics from global data illustrate that sales of energy drinks amounted to US $ 2.8 billion in 2016, due to the growth of sales in the market, they have increased steadily since 2011. The energy drinks market in the United States is dominated by the following brands: Red Bull, Monster Beverage and Rockstar energy drinks, which are the brands most sold and consumed by American People. Red Bull generated sales in the US UU For a value of 3 billion US dollars with your energy drink that "gives you wings" in that year. On the other hand, Monster Energy reported sales of 1.5 billion US dollars as well.

Credits: Statista.com

Due to the profits, the energy drinks industry competes in the market with three other companies that are recognized for being the favorite energy drinks of the consumers around of the world as well. These are: Red Bull from Austria with its original Red Bull drink energy drink and its famous slogan "Red Bull gives you wings", Monster from America and its Monster Original energy drink and finally Rockstar from America and its original Rockstar energy drink. The three brands have a product that is characterized by its different flavor, but also by the lifestyle it offers to each consumer. 

Initially, the product of Red bull was directly associated with the party atmosphere, by the energy waste. Another segment was the students or people who frequently went to bed late and needed an extra dose of caffeine to stay active, awake. Finally, another segment began to emerge consisting of athletes, more specifically in the field of extreme sports, so that, it is there where Red bull finds a niche and an interesting opportunity to develop a content strategy. The great mass sports, such as football, basketball or baseball, were already covered by other brands. In addition, these athletes did not have a sponsorship, which opened the opportunity to reach a large number of fans not only sponsor athletes, but the sport itself.

                

The live coverage of this release exceeded in Youtube to events of that year such as the Royal Wedding of England and the Olympic Games of London. The video takes more than 40 million views on the 

official channel of the brand.

 When it comes to generating buzz around a brand as Li and Bernoff (2011) said “is the most honest form of marketing, building upon people’s natural desire to share their experiences with family, friends, and colleagues. and it also a powerful amplifier of brand marketing. Word of mouth, or online buzz succeeds because: it’s believable, self-reinforcing and self-spreading.” It means, that is something that combines a wacky, jaw-dropping event or experience with pure branding. If buzz is done right, people will write about it, so it becomes a great PR vehicle. 

That’s what Red Bull did with one of the events with the greatest global impact sponsored by themselves, has been the incredible diving project involving Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner from space, on 14 October 2012. "Red Bull Stratos", the name that Red Bull gave to the mission, it consisted in that Baumgartner flew 39 kilometers into the stratosphere over New Mexico, United States, in a helium balloon before free falling into a pressure suit and then parachuting to Earth.

As expected, Red Bull broke all records and made millions of people see the event that had a global impact through social networks, television, radio, etc. This great event has been

One of the most successful and best rated marketing campaigns of all time. This campaign has managed to overcome marketing barriers and has gone from extreme sports to a new standard of marketing and promotional efforts that fits perfectly with its famous slogan "Red Bull gives you wings". Thanks to this successful campaign, Consumer, people has managed to talk about the spooky event for a long time., This was an excellent Buzz Marketing, an event or activity that generated publicity, excitement, and information to the consumer.

The brand then discovers the key to creating stories around extreme sports. This lies in the micro-moments that make an extreme sport something amazing. They are very specific moments within an exhibition or competition of extreme sports, which required a high level of audiovisual production to be able to capture them at their maximum expression. So, his strategy since the late 90s has been focused on generating content to position himself within this corner, to the point that in 2007 he created a media company called Red Bull Media House.

As part of their marketing activities, Red Bull sponsor several extreme sports teams and athletes which they regularly cover on their Facebook wall.  They integrate their Red Bull TV into their page to keep their fans engaged for as long as possible on their Facebook page. Here you can access premium content that their competitors just simply don’t offer.   

Curiously, it’s very rare for Red Bull to post anything that doesn’t include an overwhelming image in a stunning setting. Their most popular posts on Facebook are photos and videos of extreme sports which gather thousands of re-shares onto the personal Facebook profiles of their fans, this then promotes the brand to a further audience who don’t have to necessarily ‘Like’ the Facebook page to be exposed to these forms of media. 

Red Bull take the usage of hashtags and imagery to another level as they encourage their fans to get involved it. Their Twitter account boasts over 2.1 million followers, and by using the #Givesyouwings repeatedly in their tweets they aim to get as many people as possible talking about their brand on Twitter. Basically, Red Bull just handle two social media: Twitter, Instagram & Youtube

Brand Comparison & Analysis

I used Google Trends that analyses the popularity of top search queries in Google Search across various regions and languages and uses graphs to compare the search volume of different queries over time, to find out in a period of one month ( On September 23 - On October 20 / 2018)which of 50 states in America prefer to drink  Red Bull, Monster or Rockstar energy drink, which are their favorite energy drink?. It surprised me that, actually,  Monster energy drink is positioned in the first place as the most popular and favorite energy drink in United Stated, then in the second place I found Red Bull, and finally Rockstar energy drink. See below the figure 1,2,3

GoogleTrends.com Figure 1.

GoogleTrends.com Figure 2.

GoogleTrends.com Figure 3.

As you can see in the map Monster energy drink is almost covering the whole country and it is because on Monster's  strategies on social media revolve around their sponsorship of many different extreme sports. They have a huge Fan-page on Facebook that is around 26,438,215 users and 3.2 million followers on Twitter.

They also have a reddit link where customers can sign in with their username and password. This is something unique that this particular energy drink brand has, because reddit is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. It means, it is a community base form that allows users to discus things in a variety of products, areas, topics, interest. 

Monster Beverage really does seem they let their sponsorship of extreme sports do their selling. However, they constantly posting about extreme sport events, photos, videos and tricks in their social media, they aim to captivate their audience in this way, and they are making it very well, becuase if we look at the Google Trends graphics they are covering 22 state over 50 states, since the other 28 states of United States prefer Red Bull .Even when, There’s no direct selling, no discount codes, few promotional offers. They are just living and breathing extreme sports as their audience does. You can also find the company branding plastered over the athletes and walls of stadiums providing an effective way of getting the brand to perform as a backdrop for recognition.

As Curious data, Twitter for Monster is all about their hashtag #UnleashTheBeast and if you do a quick search through Twitter you can see that it is often trending this allows Monster to constantly have a large captive audience:

"Getting some energy to be 100% and with good vibes this Sunday."

 On the other hand, Rockstar energy drinks company has as a slogan "double the size for the same price"  like Monster Energy Drink. Even when they are the third best-selling brand in the American market, Rockstar pays twice as much advertising than the others energy drink industry average, since the secret of positioning is in the image. They rather to take care of the image and transmit a sentiment to the public with it, than the taste of the drink. The marketing strategy that the brand has used has focused on getting a feeling of fame and excitement in consumers when they drink the Rockstar.

Like Red Bull and Monster Energy, Rockstar sponsors numerous action and motor sporting events. The brand sponsors a lot of action sports, such as BMX Racing, FMX, Skate, Ski, Snowboard or Wake. They also invests in motor sports, such as MX, NASCAR. Additionally, they presents a special dedication to musical events sponsoring numerous artists and participating in several shows around the world. This brand have more than two social media: they have account in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

I also wanted to measure one more thing, so that, I went to the Social Mention  page and checked the strength, sentiment, passion and reach of these energy drink brand during the last month. 

I found that Monster energy drink has a higher percentage in the strength social mention (100%) than the other energy drink brands. That means, Monster's consumer are mentioning a lot the brand in social media, maybe via hashtag, among others. It also has the level of passion higher (4%) than the other ones brand, it seems individuals are talking each others about Monster energy drink. Doing reviews, etc. See below figure 1 (Monster energy drink). On the other hand, Red Bull energy drink has the higher score in sentiment social mention (17%). It means that Red Bull is the brand that has more positive comments about their quality of products. See below figure 2 (Red Bull energy drink. Finally, Rockstar has almost the same percentage of passion and reach   in social mention, so that, there are more people promoting the brand in social media.figure 3 (Rockstar energy drink).

 Credits: SocialMention.com Figure 1

 Credits: SocialMention.com Figure 2

 Credits: SocialMention.com Figure 3

In conclusion, my communicator's lens, brands like Red Bull take their marketing strategies and their aspirations to another level. The amount of sponsorship that they are involved with is incredible. This means that the level of exposure they receive on a regular basis is a brilliant way to keep their products in the minds of their consumers. It is also interesting to see how the brands in this sector consider that the sponsorship of popular sports is the most important thing to help generate enthusiasm around their brand than working in the groundswell in social media. There is definitely clear positioning of Monster and Red Bull brand who live and breathe extreme sports. They are implacables with their marketing and have taken a different route and are directed to a different audience.Another thing that really surprises me  how these brands do not sell directly, they do not use social networks as a means to promote their products. Actually, they are happy to offer premium content that only interests their target audience with the belief that their constant presence will make the sale forever. Only time will tell us if it will always be that way...Thank you so much!