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The Mythology of Red Bull
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoAlways funny to read accounts of Red Bull's history which mention that people hate the taste. I recently overcame a 20-year daily addiction to Red Bull (thanks COVID, I guess – only a forced 2-week quarantine keeping me away from the shop worked) and my dependence was based on its taste. It couldn't have been the ingredients, because similar energy drinks just didn’t do it for me. At a certain point I was wishing that all food tasted like Red Bull, and that’s when I decided that my consumption might be a problem.
- DaveExeter 6y agoNow I'm happy to never have tried it! Would never spend $2+ for a drink that costs about $0.09 to manufacture.
- david_shaw 6y ago> Would never spend $2+ for a drink that costs about $0.09 to manufacture. Sadly, adhering to this rule would prevent buying coffee and beer -- two things I'm looking forward to as the world re-opens :)
- Mediterraneo10 6y agoIt would also prevent one from buying plain Coca-Cola or other soft drinks in certain countries. One of the odd things about the history of pricing in the Nordic countries is that the price of ordinary soda has climbed to that of Red Bull, while the price of Red Bull itself has stayed about the same.
- DaveExeter 6y agoIn the USA, I can buy 67oz of Coca Cola for $1. 8.4oz of Red Bull is about $2. 1.4 cents per ounce vs 47 cents per ounce!
- Nav_Panel 6y agoCoffee seems far more expensive than this to produce, especially for good/specialty coffee.
- andi999 6y agolets not get started about bottled water...
- tylerscott 6y agoHere I thought I was alone in this opinion. I’ve often wished for a caffeine free version of Red Bull so I could drink more without jitters. It is fascinating how divisive that flavor is.
- rlaabs 6y agoHave you tried cape gooseberries (Physalis peruviana)? IMO they taste very similar to sugar free Red Bull. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physalis_peruviana
- tylerscott 6y agoI had not but now have plans to! Thanks for the info. TIL.
- asciimike 6y agoNileRed has a video where he takes the caffeine out of Red Bull (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY8tz1paj6o), though it's unfortunately not super practical :/
- tylerscott 6y agoNot very practical but pretty damn cool. Thanks for the share!
- cwwc 6y agoConcurred. Would love the flavor in a clean seltzer.
- internetslave 6y agoYeah I agree. For some reason, Red Bull is just better than other energy drinks. The other ones taste “cheap”
- staticelf 6y agoI also stopped drinking red bull not long ago because it would mess with my sleep cycle. I would not be tired late at night and stay up way too late. Then I would not get enough sleep and start the viscious cirle to drink more red bull. I decided to stop when I my heart started racing randomly (im closer to 30 than 40) sometimes so I visited the doctor and they basically told me to stop drinking energy drinks and sleep more. I have tried before to lower the amount but if I drink energy drinks I always end up in that bad circle. That said I love red bull. I love the taste, how clear my head gets whenever I drink it etc but I cannot drink it anymore because it is very harmful for my health.
- nickelcitymario 6y agoI'm in the same boat, although I preferred Monster drinks. They were the most effective (legal) productivity booster that I've yet to find, but eventually I needed 5 just to get through the day and started to notice a lot of side effects to be health, in terms of sleep quality and my stomach. Sadly, I don't do moderation well, so it's on my list of things I used to love but can no longer tolerate. Right up there with cola, sugar, tobacco, and alcohol.
- richm31415 6y agoIt's because of the secret ingredient of Red Bull - https://youtu.be/JbBQqMC0Htw https://youtu.be/JbBQqMC0Htw
- AdmiralAsshat 6y agoYMMV, I guess. Red Bull always tasted like liquid SweeTarts, to me.
- matwood 6y agoSame on the taste, although I prefer the sugar free Red Bull. The regular is too sweet. Other energy drinks taste too medicinal to me, and tbh I don't need 24 ounces or however much those giant cans contain. The standard small Red Bull is like the perfect amount of liquid.
- amelius 6y agoThe acidity of Red Bull is also very bad for teeth.
- joncrane 6y agoI have to admit, Red Bull really knows how to spend their sponsorship dollars. I practice and am a big fan of two sports they sponsor heavily: skateboarding and auto racing. They sponsor some of the absolute best and "real" skaters, including Jamie Foy and Zion Wright, among others. They aren't corporate or try to mold fiercely independent skaters into an image. They just pay the best skaters in the world to wear their logo. They also pay to build some of the best skateparks/obstacle courses in the world by sponsoring some of the contest series. In auto racing they sponsor the iconic Red Bull Racing team, headed by an absolute troll of a human being but also insanely successful. They have the best aerodynamicist in racing history (Adrian Newey) and some of the best drivers in the world. They won 4 straight championships with Seb Vettel, and now look poised to finally challenge Mercedes' dominance this year. I personally don't drink any energy drink besides coffee, but two of the big things I'm passionate about are the better for Red Bull's involvement.
- Cshelton 6y agoHow is Christian Horner (Red Bull Racing F1 team principal) a troll of a human being? He’s one of my favorites in F1. He’s blunt and strictly business, but a troll...? Edit: Ah, never mind!
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- riffraff 6y agoI just wanted to mention that I remember the Baumgartner freefall for a specific thing: I watched it streaming live on youtube and I remember looking at the number of active viewers climbing above 3M (I think maybe up to 8). This was 2012, and I realized 1) youtube had insane scalability 2) live streaming was going to be a much bigger thing then I could ever imagine.
- jefftk 6y agoThis was just after I had started at Google, and I was on the same floor as the YouTube engineers responsible for the CDN. I remember a crowd around their dashboards as the spectacle of "we didn't know our metrics could go that high" competed with a spectacle of someone jumping from space.
- anonu 6y ago2 completely unrelated redbull thoughts: 1. I look back at my college years when "Red Bull Vodka" was a thing. I still am a bit in shock that we'd go out and have multiple of these in an evening and then go to sleep... In my later years I've gone to bars and - on a whim - asked for a "red bull vodka" and bartenders would look at me strange and say something like "we dont have redbull here". 2. I've had the extraordinary good luck to visit "red bull island": a private island resort called Laucala, one of the Fiji islands. The owner is the German co-founder. Every mini fridge is stocked with... red bull.
- bluedino 6y agoJaeger Bomb (Jaeger + Red Bull) or Red Bull and Southern Comfort... My pet peeve from 'those days' were bars that would charge you the 5.50 for Red Bull and then give you Monster or Vault or even worse a dollar-store style energy drink.
- ziptron 6y agoRed Bull does not invest in sponsorships, they invest in creating 'history'. This is an example of Red Bull creating history. They do this also by buying sports teams. You can blow 200M on side line advertising throughout several soccer seasons, or you can buy an entire soccer team. When that team wins, you build history. Its brilliant marketing.
- gdubs 6y agoBack in 2000 I went to the Edinburgh film festival. There was buzz about a film called “Battle Royale”. None of us had any clue what to expect. But one of things I remember to this day about the experience was they served the audience Red Bull and Vodka — and the Red Bull was in these commemorative cans. Brilliant marketing, all the way back then. Everyone was ordering Red Bull and Vodka all week. There were lots of tales about people having heart attacks from that combo (not that week, but from around that time). I wonder how true those stories were — or if they were mostly urban legends spread by the company themselves to seem more powerful, and appeal to young thrill seekers.
- GVIrish 6y agoMy first memory of Red Bull was in game advertising in the PS1 game WipeoutXL. As a teenager living in Panama at the time I had no idea what it was, I thought it was a made-up product just for the game. Looking back they were way ahead of their time even then.
- drhitchcock 6y agoSimilar experience here, I first came across the Red Bull advertising in Wipeout 2 on the PS1 in New Zealand. I don’t think you could even buy it here at the time.
- reducesuffering 6y agoI'm inclined to go against the grain and say that the alcohol-and-energy-drink combo causing heart attacks is more urban legend and "the dangers of sugar+caffeine", i.e. soda, than anything particular to energy drinks. Red Bull, and other energy drinks, are essentially an extra-caffeinated soda with taurine and B-vitamins. Still less caffeine than a cup of coffee at that. So ya, it'd be healthier to stay away from 5 shots of vodka and 5 sodas at once. Nothing too particular about energy drinks that make you overdo caffeine+sugar+alcohol.
- 45ure 6y agoI discovered it in après-ski bars of Kitzbühel, where it was given away liberally with shots of vodka (almost for free). It was hard to refuse it, as alcohol/socialising costs accounted for a significant budget of a skiing holiday.
- narrator 6y agoThe 2+ hour documentary about the Red Bull jump from space project was great -- lots of low budget space engineering fun. https://www.redbull.com/us-en/films/mission-to-the-edge-of-space https://www.redbull.com/us-en/films/mission-to-the-edge-of-s...
- jariel 6y agoRedBull is a master class in marketing, from top to bottom.
- Etheryte 6y agoFor anyone travelling to Southeast Asia, I strongly urge you to try out Krating Daeng, the predecessor of Red Bull. It's an interesting experience in that it's both similar yet completely different — and not carbonated. Whatever the reason, almost all energy drinks and the like are carbonated in the west. It's an interesting contrast and well worth the try.
- 0b01 6y agoYou should try Baba Roots, also not carbonated and has a similar taste.
- xzel 6y agoI spent a few weeks living in Bali and these were so much better than the Red Bull back in the states. I don't even think I've had a Red Bull since I've been back (almost 5 years) because I know I'd rather have a Krating Daeng.
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- ufmace 6y agoThe marketing side is pretty impressive, but it seems like the logistics side might be even more impressive. I'm not sure how they manage this, but it's the only consumer product that seems to be virtually impossible to purchase in bulk at a reduced price, at least in any quantity below a full pallet. The price per can is remarkably consistent even in widely varying geographic areas.
- 0b01 6y agoLittle do people know Red Bull is originally a Thai energy drink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krating_Daeng https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krating_Daeng Tastewise I also enjoy Jamaican Baba Roots: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Roots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baba_Roots
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago> The price per can is remarkably consistent even in widely varying geographic areas. Indeed. It amazed me that Red Bull costs the same in Europe and Madagascar, in spite of the distance to transport it from Europe to the latter. I suppose that the cost of producing a can is tiny, and so Red Bull makes a huge profit in Europe, while in the developing world it is content to make lesser profits as it plays a long game. I saw a similar situation with a Peru-made milkshake-in-a-can that is the same price in Peru and in West Africa.
- dublinben 6y agoDisclaimer, I don't speak German, but according to this weeks flyer from the Spar grocery store in their native Austria, you can apparently buy a 6-pack of Red Bull for 0.89 EUR each. That's roughly $1.05, so significantly cheaper than the $1.40/can it goes for at Walmart in the US.[1] [0] https://www.spar.at/aktionen/salzburg/spar/flugblatt-kw-13?p=7 https://www.spar.at/aktionen/salzburg/spar/flugblatt-kw-13?p... [1] https://www.walmart.com/ip/12-Cans-Red-Bull-Energy-Drink-8-4-fl-oz/10316267 https://www.walmart.com/ip/12-Cans-Red-Bull-Energy-Drink-8-4...
- albntomat0 6y agoI'm a fan of multiple big projects of Red Bull, including Formula 1, skydiving and Flugtag. I've honestly looked for ways to support their activities, as I enjoy this "advertising", but dislike their drink.
- dustinmoris 6y agoRed Bull is one of the greatest examples of successful marketing of all times. They brought extreme sports to the forefront of mainstream media and have built a brand like no one else. Before Red Bull people didn't really know much about various niche extreme sports, but today everyone knows what a wing suit it, what base jumping is, big wave riding or the that you can fly with a jet pack next to real fighter jets.
- polygotdomain 6y agoRed Bull operates under a fundamentally different principle than other brands. Other brands look for something to sponsor that aligns with their brand ideals or image. Red Bull creates the sponsorship opportunities for their brand. In doing so, Red Bull creates a) a much deeper connection with the activities and athletes they sponsor, and b) creates a brand that feels far more genuine than simply slapping their name on something. The result is not something that's "brought to you by" or "in partnership with". The sponsorships, the teams, the athletes; they _are_ Red Bull. That sort of identity has an incredible connection, and one that can drive it's own revenue in addition to driving fizzy drink sales.
- nonick 6y agoIn the town that I live in, Red Bull is the sponsor of what they call "The World's Toughest Hard Enduro Rallye". Every year it draws a crowd of tourists to the city and produces some great entertainment. https://www.redbullromaniacs.com/ https://www.redbullromaniacs.com/
- bumbledraven 6y ago“Like one of Darwin's long-beaked finches, Red Bull bears the marks of a business with one specific attribute selected for over and over again: garnering attention.”
- bumbledraven 6y agohttps://archive.is/2021.04.05-180259/https://www.readthegeneralist.com/briefing/red-bull https://archive.is/2021.04.05-180259/https://www.readthegene...
- schnevets 6y agoI never realized it, but Red Bull spends money similarly to Google's early days. They have their "cash cow" revenue stream and a bunch of seemingly unrelated explorations that may burn capital or prove to diversify the portfolio. By keeping the logo so prevalent, it mitigates customers from developing brand judgments. I'm not going to judge a coworker for drinking a Red Bull because the brand is equally associated with European soccer, quirky commercials, flugtag, and celebrity. In the same way, Google became associated with Google Earth, Google Glass, lush office campuses, and "don't be evil" (remember those days?).
- GuB-42 6y agoMaybe it is behind the paywall but one interesting technique used by Red Bull is that they marketed themselves as a hard drug. Red Bull is actually a rather tame drink. It has a lot of caffeine, but not more than a typical cup of coffee. It has a few fancy ingredients like taurine, but these don't amount to much. If anything, the most harmful/addictive ingredient of it is sugar, and the actual "energy" part of it. But it is the way they marketed it. It "gives you wings". They have representatives give out the first dose for free at schools. It is associated with the rave subculture. It is sometimes consumed in association with alcohol. If people didn't know it was just a soft drink, they would think about something like ecstasy. And it worked. People bought these overpriced soft drink cans as some kind of forbidden substance with powerful effects, kids loved that. I was one of these kids BTW. I worked somewhat too well as government banned them in some countries, before they realized wasn't as harmful as it sounded, so they reverted to taxing it. Fun fact, in France (I don't know about other countries), they made a special tax for energy drinks, defined as soft drinks with more than a certain amount of caffeine. As a response, Red Bull silently reduced their amount of caffeine in order to stay under the limit, making it barely higher than a typical soft drink.
- doublejay1999 6y agoI never really bothered with it in my youth. Now I'm nudging 50, there's many a bike achieved with red bull & ibuprofen. i dont mind the taste, but the the smell is pungent and it always repeats on me something awful.