It’s the early 1980s in Bangkok. Dietrich Mateschitz is visiting his business partner, Chaleo Yoovidhya. He’s introduced to a local energy tonic, Krating Daeng, popular among truck drivers for its stimulating effects. His jet lag disappears almost immediately. Following this discovery, Mateschitz partners with Chaleo, adapts the tonic for the Western market, and builds the Red Bull brand strategy by focusing on marketing and sales.
Great brands don’t just sell products. They build worlds that people want to belong to. The world Mateschitz builds is the Red Bull brand strategy. Most companies treat marketing like promotion. Red Bull didn’t. He treated it as the product itself. He wasn’t selling himself on the can; he was selling Red Bull.
“If an insurance company sponsors a team and loses, people don’t change their insurance. But when Red Bulls lose, people get a new drink.” — Dietrich Mateschitz
Branding, Marketing, and Culture
It’s the fall of 2012. Dietrich Mateschitz is $30 million in the hole for the Red Bull Stratos Mission. It’s a years-long scientific project disguised as a stunt—meant to show what Red Bull stands for. He wants Felix Baumgartner to break the sound barrier by jumping from the edge of space—wearing Red Bull.
Rather than a stunt, Mateschitz frames this as a scientific mission. He hires a team of experts. They include NASA veterans and engineers. He asks this team to build a capsule and a pressure suit for Baumgartner.
Part of the mission is symbolic: passing the torch. Mateschitz brings in Joe Kittinger. He holds the world record for the highest altitude base jump, fastest freefall, and longest time in freefall since 1960.
Kittinger is the mission’s mentor. He’s the only voice Baumgartner can hear in his ear during the jump. All he hears is his breath and Kittinger’s voice.
Baumgartner jumps from more than 128,000 feet. He’s the first human to break the sound barrier in free fall. His jump is livestreamed. It sets media viewing records across the world.
What’s notably missing from the record-breaking jump is an actual can of Red Bull. Instead, the logo is everywhere—on the capsule, Baumgartner’s suit, and his parachute. The logo becomes synonymous with the event.
Mateschitz proves something simple: people don’t want to be told what a brand stands for; they want to see it. Show us with your actions, not your words.
The event generates media impressions that money can’t buy. Its earned media value is enormous. Sales skyrocket in the months following the historic jump.
Red Bull solidifies itself as a brand of adventure, not just a drink company. It proves brands can create cultural value through human feats.
Behind every cult brand is relentless marketing and hard work. Very few people understand this better than Mateschitz. His success comes from an instinct for brand sentiment, marketing, and culture, expressed through Red Bull’s advertising.
Marketing Tools
Ford Motor Company was in trouble in 2004. It’s desperate to sell its failing Jaguar Racing team. Ford has burned more than $300 million with little success to show for it.
Mateschitz buys the team for $1, committing to invest over $400 million in the years ahead. Rivals like McLaren and Ferrari laugh at Mateschitz. They think he has no clue what he’s doing. He’s just another rich guy looking to get into Formula One.
Ferrari and McLaren saw themselves as car manufacturers. Mateschitz sees himself as a content creator. He wasn’t simply buying a racing team. He was buying a global broadcast platform reaching hundreds of countries. He put it simply: if an insurance company loses, people still buy insurance. When Red Bull loses, people switch drinks.
Red Bull Racing debuts in 2005. The Formula 1 establishment dismisses them as an energy drink company that doesn’t belong. Mateschitz leans into his outsider status to engage younger fans with his team and brand. From there, established brands are playing catch-up.
Red Bull becomes known as the party team. Techno music is blasted from their garage. They hire influencers to push the brand to the masses. They publish a daily satirical tabloid called The Red Bulletin to get their story out to even more people.
Mateschitz doesn’t stop there. During the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix, the Red Bull pit crew dressed as Stormtroopers and the cars featured Star Wars branding in a cross-promotional event. No one had seen anything like it, and competitors didn’t know what to make of it.
They keep going. They revolutionize F1 hospitality. Traditional motorhomes are replaced with the Red Bull Energy Station. It’s a massive, glass and steel floating structure in Monaco. It’s open to guests and celebrities. Red Bull becomes the center of the race weekend in Monaco.
Mateschitz focuses on owning the stage instead of simply buying advertising space. He turns Red Bull into a global media empire that happens to sell energy drinks. Red Bull’s engagement in F1 was a crucial marketing tool. They showed sports sponsorship could be fully integrated into the brand.
Learning From Mistakes
Dietrich Mateschitz launches Carpe Diem in the late 1990s. It’s a line of wellness beverages meant to be a counterpart to Red Bull. He focuses the drink on metabolism, the immune system, and spiritual well-being instead of simply being an energy drink.
Its flagship product was a kombucha based on a 2,000-year-old Chinese recipe that includes herbal tea and botanical water flavors. Mateschitz believes it will be another Red Bull.
His timing was off. Carpe Diem came to market way before the modern fermentation wave hit the mainstream. Customers weren’t familiar with the vinegar taste profile you find in drinks today, like kombucha.
Unlike Red Bull, Carpe Diem didn’t use a guerrilla marketing strategy. It was launched into the higher end of the market, like in luxury stores, before eventually moving to large retailers. Red Bull dominated gyms and bars. Carpe Diem couldn’t find a similar home for its wellness-focused drink.
Market testing for Carpe Diem was difficult. Red Bull’s polarizing nature became its strength. Carpe Diem’s health-conscious positioning made it hard to reach the same mass audience as Red Bull.
Eventually, Mateschitz throws in the towel. He sells the license for Carpe Diem to his bottling partner, Rauch, in the mid-2000s. The drink never caught on internationally like Red Bull.
Mateschitz learns a key lesson: a drink needs a purpose beyond thirst. Simply quenching thirst is not enough.
Red Bull Brand Strategy
Dietrich Mateschitz didn’t compete with Coke and Pepsi. He made people want to belong. The strategy was simple: focus time and money on marketing and sales. Build a world. Invite people in. It began in Bangkok with a drink that fixed jet lag. It ended with a man jumping from the edge of space—and millions watching. That’s the Red Bull brand strategy. Sell more cans by making people want to belong.
