Red Bull

"If you want to understand human behaviour, logic can tell you a certain amount. For example, if you put the price down people would probably buy more of what you are selling. If you’re running a pub and it smells of piss, people probably won’t go there. That’s something you don’t need to research, you know that by and large logic will say that it’s not a good idea, okay? Then there’s the information market research can tell you, you know, asking people whether they’d prefer your pub to smell of urine or not? Those are questions which people will answer fairly honestly, you know, they’d rather buy this than that because they think it looks nicer. Research is not all total rubbish, I mean, you know, people do have some access to their thoughts and feelings and they can occasionally describe their behaviour with a degree of accuracy. But then there’s this other thing which is what I call the missing third. It’s probably more like the missing half in terms of human behaviour in truth, it’s the influences on behaviour that logic won’t tell you and research won’t tell you. I’ll give you an example of that. Take Red Bull. My theory asks how can they charge £1.50 for a can of Red Bull, when Coke only costs 50p? In a way they succeeded because they made the can smaller … people recognise that it’s not a Coke can, it’s a small can, therefore this must be a different kind of drink from Coke so maybe there’s a reason why it charges £1.50 rather than 50p. Now the interesting thing is logic’s not going to tell you that. No one’s going to suggest that in order to be able to charge £1.50 for this you have to make the can smaller. No consumer research group is going to say: “I’m not paying £1.50 for that mate, but I would if you gave me less of it.” No one’s ever going to say that. But the truth of the matter is that that’s how the brain works sometimes."

"The street finds its own uses for things, as someone once said. And isn’t it interesting how many successful brands eschew user imagery. easyJet works hard to deposition itself — to be socially neutral. Apple uses dead people or silhouettes. BMW for years had a rule that no people could be shown in its ads (an especially wise move as not even BMW drivers like other BMW drivers — or anyone else for that matter; note to BMW … don’t try starting a social network). Is Red Bull an energy drink or a mixer? What is the user-imagery of Amazon? Who is the typical Google user? What makes Google better? The fact that we cannot answer these questions simply would typically be considered a flaw."

"For his expansion plans in the East and also due to an economic downturn during this time, which was one of the reasons for stepping abroad, Haselsteiner transformed his Ilbau Group from late 1986 from a difficult-to-manage conglomerate of individual companies and their various subsidiaries into a real corporation with streamlined structures and short decision-making paths: The parent company Bauindustrie Holding AG (BIHAG) was established, later simply called Bau Holding. Beneath Bau Holding were Ilbau GmbH, Negrelli Bau AG, and Asphalt & Beton GmbH. Each of these three subsidiaries, in turn, had several regional subsidiaries. With an annual turnover equivalent to just under 440 million euros and 5,000 employees, Bau Holding was the second-largest construction group in Austria at the time of its founding. With fresh capital from Girozentrale, in 1987, Haselsteiner ventured into Hungary, two years before the fall of the Iron Curtain: “We Austrians felt responsible for what used to be the monarchy.” With this move, he was ahead of leading domestic companies from other industries such as the car dealership Porsche Holding (Porsche Austria) or Red Bull, which only expanded their businesses to Hungary after the end of Communism."

"Even during the lifetime of his father-in-law, Ilbau had already extended its reach to Vienna. Haselsteiner then founded a subsidiary in the federal capital in 1975. With this, he took over additional smaller domestic construction companies, so that by the mid-eighties a construction group emerged which, for the Austrian standards of that time, was large, but still far from what Strabag represents today. However, it should not be forgotten that until the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and the EU accession in 1995, the Austrian economy knew hardly any larger private enterprises. After World War II, almost the entire industry was nationalized to prevent it from being seized as former German property by the Allies. The financial sector was also placed under public control. Truly large private fortunes, as known today from Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz, Novomatic founder Johann Graf, the Porsche, Piëch, and Swarovski families, or Haselsteiner, could not develop in this environment."