The Murketing of Red Bull

The Murketing of Red Bull

The day was so perfect, it looked just like a commercial. The skies were blue, the sand was white, and the temperature was in the low seventies. Among a handful of people milling around on a broad stretch of Miami Beach shorefront, three guys were fussing with kiteboards — contraptions that consist of large, crescent-shaped parachutes rigged atop miniature surfboards. Two members of the party wielded video cameras, and from a distance it all looked like a bunch of college kids in the process of documenting some silly and pointless stunt.

In fact, they were preparing to ride these wind-powered kite boards 88 miles from Key West to to Varadero, Cuba — a distance that would set a new world record for the emerging sport. They were not, however, college kids.

Several clutched little silver cans of Red Bull, the European "energy drink" that has become a phenomenon in the United States at least partly on the strength of incredibly shrewd marketing. Introduced here in 1997, Red Bull has spawned an entirely new category in the U.S. beverage business: Energy drinks accounted for $275 million in wholesale revenues last year, a whopping 65 percent of which went to Red Bull. Owners of the privately held Austrian company won't talk about its financials, but annual sales reportedly top $1 billion worldwide.

Red Bull is popular with college kids and nightclubbers, whom the company aggressively targets. But its most public tactic has been to wrap the drink in the sweaty mantle of extreme sports. To that end, Red Bull sponsors its own stunts and competitions in relatively obscure disciplines like street luge, waterfall kayaking, and freeskiing. The Red Bull Snowthrill of Alaska, for instance—held March 21-28 this year in Haines — gathers 12 freeskiers in the Chugach Mountains, pairing each with a photographer and offering cash prizes for the hairiest images. The point is that Red Bull associates itself with sports that are not just extreme, but Extreme!

Like kite-boarding to Cuba. Kiteboarding blends elements of windsurfing and wakeboarding, and lately has gained a sort of critical mass as the equipment becomes more affordable. The rider stands on a four- to six-foot board, secured by footstraps or boots; he's propelled by a billowing "kite" (the big parachute thing), which is controlled by manipulating a handbar that guides 100-foot-long tethers. When the wind is right, people who know what they're doing can pull off astonishing 40-foot-high jumps and butter-smooth landings. Competitions usually involve tricks, so the Cuba venture is unusual in pushing the limit of how far, literally, a kite-boarder can go.

As I joined the beach crew, Kent Marinkovic, one of the kiteboarders, was talking to the cameras. Marinkovic is national sales manager for Adventure Sports, a Miami extreme-sports equipment retailer. He's 33, preppie-looking and very tan. He explained his equipment — he had a 150-centimeter (about five-foot) board and planned to use boots — and his state of mind. "I’m super-motivated," he said. "I don’t get nervous." He held a can of Red Bull.

Nearby was another kiteboarder, Neil Hutchinson, who co-owns a Fort Lauderdale-based watersports outfit called Kitesurf U.S.A., scorns vegetables of any kind, and smokes Marlboro Reds. He's British, 31, and looks like a leather-hided Peter O'Toole. When he took his turn explaining his equipment and tactics to the lens, he was immediately heckled by Oliver "Mowgli" Butsch, the third kiteboarder.

"Neil has tactics!" Butsch bellowed in mock disgust. "Buddy, I'm going over. I'm arriving. Fuck tactics!"

Butsch is Austrian, so it was hard not to think of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he spoke, which was often. He's a 38-year-old model with long hair, shades, and a tan even more stupendous than Hutchinson's. He charmed us all, and ignored his constantly trilling cell phone: "The more you pick it up, the less people will call you. If you never answer — they want you!"

I took a seat under a beach umbrella and opened my first-ever can of Red Bull. You don't drink this stuff for the flavor — it's been described, accurately, as tasting like liquid Sweetarts — but for the effect. It’s supposed to give you a boost — it "vitalizes body and mind," as the can puts it. Presumably this explains why Red Bull associates itself with fringe athletics. Marinkovic joined me by my umbrella. I asked him about the drink, and he stared at the Red Bull can in his hand. But he didn’t say anything about the various promises printed on the back ("Increases endurance," "Stimulates the metabolism,"