Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2018

sporting events all across the globe in order to build a stronger brand. Since Red Bull held

approximately 40% of the North American energy drink market share in 2015 (Mordor

Intelligence, 2017) in addition to making 6 billion USD in revenue in 2016 (Red Bull, 2016),

it is quite apparent that Red Bull’s market strategy and brand has succeeded, but whether

these figures are completely accurate or not is unknown: Red Bull may be trying to

exaggerate sales to make themselves appear more profitable on top of Mordor Intelligence

potentially having flawed research. ! However, there are also limitations to consider regarding Red Bull’s social media success. As

Red Bull is a private company, there is a lack of extensive financial information regarding

their marketing plans/priorities and the results which they have yielded. This demonstrates a

high degree of uncertainty in regards to proving any exact correlations between their change

to social media marketing and increase in sales. Additionally, there is much more to their

marketing mix than just social media: one possibility explaining the company’s increase in

sales could simply be a global increase in demand for energy drinks with Red Bull ensuring

that its product is more readily available to consumers than its competitors. According to

Research and Markets, a company specializing in market research and data services, the

global energy drinks market was worth 39760.8 million USD in 2013 and it is expected to

reach 61707.5 million USD by 2021, showing that demand for energy drinks has increased

and will continue to do so, however there is no indication that this data is entirely valid.

Considering the data from the previous paragraph, these figures do not correspond properly.

As such, if Red Bull had a 40% market share in a market that is worth at least $39.7 billion,

then that means revenue should be well over $10 billion instead of $6 billion, which points

out the clear unreliability of at least one of these sources.

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