Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

These ideas of convincing people that their product will help them to achieve maximum

potential as well as associating them with success falls under the fundamental aspects of

marketing. This fundamental aspect relates to connecting with the motivational needs of the

target audience. Red Bull creates continuous customer experiences as well as sponsored

activities associated with the brand quite frequently. Red Bull’s famous tagline “Red Bull

gives you wings,” not only implies its external image of helping customers achieve better

performance, but also formalizes the core ethos of thrill-seeking experiences and adventure

into its own culture (American Marketing Association, 2017). By implementing these tactics

into their marketing strategy, Red Bull creates a desire to purchase their products. According

to Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as well as other motivational theorists, people are

most motivated by feeling a sense of belonging as well as self-actualization, provided that

more basic needs such as food and safety are being met. By conveying the idea that their

products will make you feel belonged to a large group of people and allow for self

improvement, consumers should be more likely to want to be associated with the product/

company. ! If a decent level of Red Bull’s sales stem from their fundamental approach of meeting

intrinsic motivational needs, then social media simply acts as a messenger to convey this

information. Essentially, it indicates that if the promotion medium was changed to television

or media articles, there would be no change on the number of sales made. However, rising

popularity in social media amongst Red Bull’s target market would suggest that it is perhaps

the most suitable method of promoting themselves, even if sales are being made primarily for

demand of the product itself rather than advertising convincing people to buy. Perhaps

meeting people’s intrinsic motivational needs through social media marketing has the ability

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