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Red Bull: The Stratosphere Campaign
Background Note
Dietrich Mateschitz (Mateschitz) was born in 1944 in Austria to parents who were primary school teachers. After graduating with a marketing degree from the University of Commerce in Vienna, he took up marketing jobs at Unilever and Jacobs Coffee before becoming the international director for marketing at Blendax, a German company that dealt in FMCG products like toothpaste, skin creams, and shampoos, in 1979... Mateschitz’s job involved a lot of travel around the world and during one of his trips to Thailand, he discovered an ‘energy drink’ called Krating Daeng. The drink was very popular among blue collar workers in the country. When he sampled it, Mateschitz reportedly discovered that the drink was good at combating jetlag. The idea of marketing an energy drink in Western markets surfaced when he realized that though energy drinks had a huge market in Asia, there was no such product available in Europe....... |
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Mateschitz approached Chaleo Yoovidhya (Yoovidhya), the owner of TC Pharmaceuticals which made Krating Daeng, with a proposal for marketing the beverage in Europe. Yoovidhya agreed to give Mateschitz the foreign licensing rights to the drink in return for a partnership in the venture. In 1984, Mateschitz resigned from his job to pursue his new business. Mateschitz and Yoovidhya each invested US$ 500,000 to become equal partners, with a 49 percent stake each in the new company. The remaining two percent was held in trust for Yoovidhya’s son. .........
