Energy Drink Research

Henry Buckham

Red BullRed Bull is an Austrian brand of energy drinks that are marketed and sold worldwide by their parent company, Red Bull GmbH. It is the most popular and bestselling energy drink brand in the world, selling over 5 billion cans in 2013.

Red Bull uses a simple yet very effective colour and style, with just three core colours. Their logo is a combination of red and yellow and usually on a blue background, making it very visually distinctive as these colours work extremely well together. These colours, while common, are also present in Thailand’s national flag, which is where the idea of Red Bull originated. What sets Red Bull apart from most other energy drink brands is that their marketing and style isn’t overly aggressive or dominating, instead being more focused on a bold, stylized appearance that promotes power and victory. This can be seen with their distinctive charging bull logo. They are not stationary but instead are charging at each other head-on, which can be seen as a show of strength and determination. The fact that Red Bull uses a core palette of colours on all of its brands and advertising as well as a simple yet effective logo ensures that they are instantly recognizable to the general public.

Primarily Red Bull is sold upon reward power, which is linked directly to their slogan ‘Gives you wings’ This can be interpreted that Red Bull is a drink that can make you powerful enough to make you fly, or give the illusion of flying. It can also be interpreted as meaning to fly past the competition and emerge as the winner. Their adverts support this by featuring dozens of different sports all labeled with their logo. It shows us that Red Bull can help us succeed in any sport imaginable like motorsports to surfing to dance. This helps increase its audience to a wide range of athletes and sportsmen to the point where there are literally hundreds of different sporting events on show where Red Bull branding can be spotted.

Star power also comes into play with Red Bull as they have used a great deal of famous athletes and players from around the world in their advertising and endorsing. The use of celebrities inspires people to buy Red Bull as they themselves want to be on the same level as these famous people and they have the idea that drinking Red Bull will help them achieve what these people can.

Red Bull’s primary audience is young men, particularly those interested in sports. The drink is primarily marketed with Red Bull’s extensive array of extreme sport sponsorship, including motorsport, water sports and athletics, even extending towards space endeavors (Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the stratosphere in 2012) This promotes their brand images as being a drink associated with power, determination and victory thanks to their involvement in a countless amount of sports events. Red Bull’s website is notable for containing a lot more information about their sports events and news rather than the actual drink, which can be found in a small tab at the top while the rest of the page is devoted to Red Bull’s sponsorship. The website uses Red Bull’s blue and red colour scheme throughout which gives the brand a very smart and uniform styling, which would appeal more to young adults and older as opposed to young people such as teenagers. Red Bull, to a lesser extent, also markets towards students and college aged people as a drink that helps them stay focused during studying.

Currently there are three main Red Bull flavors: Original, Sugarfree and Zero Calories. The latter two were created to appeal to a crowd that doesn’t want/need a massive boost but would still want to enjoy the Red Bull taste. They were also created with a campaign that claimed that they would provide the energy for ‘studying, gaming and socializing’ which appeals to a more casual crowd as opposed to the sportsmen and people in demanding jobs that Red Bull targets with the original flavor.

RelentlessRelentless is a brand of energy drinks that is owned and produced by the Coca Cola Company. It is one of the most popular brands of energy drink in the UK alongside Red Bull and Monster. Unlike Red Bull, Relentless has a very defined style that is primarily aimed at a younger, ‘hip’ audience who follow common 21st century trends. This is highlighted in the design of their logo and packaging. The logo of Relentless is very stylized and distressed with lots of warped lines and curved motifs, giving it the appearance of a band logo (tying into Relentless’ music based campaign) or street art (catering to the teenage and young adult audience) It is quite aggressive and powerful looking with lots of intricate details, which would entice younger people for its unique design. Previously before a packaging change, Relentless reinforced a very artistically styled approach with the intricate logo and the inclusion of several poetic quotes on the cans. They also currently feature detailed drawings of Greek gods and folklore on their cans. This is further cemented by one of their slogans, ‘Suffer for your art’ All of this combined implies that Relentless is aiming towards a specific group of modern teenagers, particularly artistic and creative thinking individuals.

The colours used on the original flavor can are several shades of brown which symbolize that the drink is a little darker and more underground than more blatant brands such as Red Bull.

The colour brown gives the feeling of something dark and deep like a music gig or festival, something that Relentless commonly organizes. This is further evidence of the younger market that Relentless aims for as many adult wouldn’t want to attend a gig primarily due to some of the chosen acts, of which most are teenage idols or current trends. This ties heavily into the design of the drink’s website, which is arranged almost like a band’s personal website with links to events, gigs and festivals (organized by Relentless) and also features a heavy emphasis on promoting these with the news section on the main page. There are only a few articles dedicated to the drink itself and the majority are dedicated to music news and updates.

A typical Relentless can is 500ml cans which towers over normal sized drinks cans, and other energy drinks such as Red Bull. This possibly highlights a target audience of males as larger portions are often associated with masculinity. Further cementing this is the inclusion of a stylized diagram of the muscles around the head and shoulders. This ties into the other slogan Relentless uses, ‘No Half Measures’ which implies that consumers will be getting the full dose with a can of Relentless. It is also a jibe at the size of their competitor’s cans (mainly Red Bull)

MonsterMonster is a brand of energy drinks originating from the US. It is one of the bigger energy drink brands and one of the most recognizable with its distinctive black and green livery.Monster’s primary style is defined as extreme and overboard, being marketed towards those who needs the biggest amount of energy for hardcore sports and activities. Monster appeals to this audience with their aggressively styled font and logo, which takes the form of an ‘M’ that has been made with claw marks, hence the name. The font used for the logo is rough and twisted as opposed to being clear and refined, which shows that they are aiming for those on a wilder side as opposed to more chilled-out consumers. It could also be interpreted as aiming for a more ‘primal’ style, which ties into their name and what they sponsor.

As well as this, Monster Energy directs most of their advertising campaign around sponsorship of extreme sports and events, such as motocross, motorsport, skateboard, biking and eSports. This ties into their extreme energy aspect of their campaign and they also use several celebrities to promote their drink. They are usually well known athletes, drivers or cyclists, and music acts.

Monster Energy directs most of their advertising campaign around sponsorship of extreme sports and events, such as motocross, motorsport, skateboard, biking and eSports. This ties into their extreme energy aspect of their campaign and they also use several celebrities to promote their drink as the use of these encourages consumers to act like their idols and consume similar beverages. The target audience of Monster is generally a male crowd of teenagers to young adults, which can be mainly evidenced from the inclusion of their ‘Monster Girls’ section on their website, which stars many Monster-sponsored female fashion models. The heavy emphasis on the various car and bike related sports also cements this, being two male-centric hobbies.

Monster also organizes music events and sponsors several music acts like Asking Alexandria, The Word Alive and Shinedown, as well as several metal bands such as Korn and Disturbed. These are all bands that play music that is typically listened to by teenagers and not older people. It also reflects the current tastes of teenagers around the world with their constant usage of modern looking, distressed styling and their use of language, describing their drink as ‘awesome’ or ‘killer’ This is language that is more suited to a younger, wilder crowd as opposed to a more relaxed appeal. The use of their sole two brand colours, black and green, ensures that their product is extremely noticeable on shelves when browsing. The colours can also be interpreted as a green neon light in darkness, tying in to their organizing of club events and festivals. This also ties back to their younger audience as they are the most common audience in such events.

SoBe Pure RushPure Rush is a a naturally sourced energy drink produced by SoBe, a company owned by Pepsi that produces a range of flavored waters and soft drinks. Unlike many other existing energy drinks and their respective styles, Pure Rush is marketed as a more organic and natural drink, featuring lighter and more rounded packaging as well as a target audience of both males and females, particularly young adults. This is due to the lack of aggressive and ‘primal’ packaging that has been present on other brands such as Relentless and Monster, and such styling has been replaced with lots of natural colours that symbolize plant life and fruit, such as reds and greens. This implies that Pure Rush is a much more fruity drink and healthier to consumer compared to the aforementioned competitors.

Pure Rush also doesn’t feature any language that could be considered to be aimed at a young adolescent male audience, particularly slang. It uses a lot of large descriptive words for the taste, such as ‘deliciously’ and ‘invigorating’ which implies that they are more aiming for a female audience, who are usually more enticed when a product is described using such terms to tempt them.

The packaging of Pure Rush also includes SoBe’s distinctive curved lizards logo which further adds to the drink’s natural approach. The inclusion of this helps to differentiate the brand from the more aggressively marketed drinks when included with the plain white background, which helps to distinguish lighter and widely marketed drinks from drinks such as Monster and Rockstar.

Currently there are two varieties of Pure Rush: Appleberry Burst and Tropical Twist. Both of these use language that is more chilled out and relaxed in comparison to their competitor’s name choices (Monster uses such names as Khaos or Ripper for its flavours.)

The font used for the logo is a smooth and modernized typeface with no distress or wear, giving the can a clean and modern appearance. This contrasts heavily with Monster’s use of a crooked and wild font for it’s own logo to fit in with its nature of extreme sports and events. SoBe’s own advertising revolves around the fact that there isn’t enough time to do the things you like, but Pure Rush can give you the boost you need to get the most out of it.