advanced theory and practice in sport marketing - Marshalls University

FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE
Marc De Grandpre, Director of Field Marketing
Red Bull Northeast Business Unit Boston, Massachusetts
Owning the Brand Experience for Sponsoring and Producing Sport Events
Red Bull feels that it is an important part of our job to start at the grassroots
level when we talk about events. The basic premise behind any event you will
see Red Bull associated with would be to have a credible relationship within
the scene. The key is to build a relationship with athletes within core scenes
that we have identified as evolving extreme sports – things that really reflect the
personality of our brand. We look at the athletes, try to develop relationships
with them, discuss with them their sport and how it is progressing, and see
how we can become a part of that sport to help them progress it further.
A perfect example that occurred recently was the Red Bull Bike Battle in
Boston. It took about 2 years to develop that event concept. Two years ago,
our Field Marketing Manager in Boston met up with some mountain biking
athletes that went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. From there
he developed a relationship with them, and got introduced to the right
people on the scene through this relationship at UMass-Amherst. Through
that, we started seeding these groups attending events that were in the backwoods
and backcountry in the Northeast Business Unit in Massachusetts and
Vermont. From that relationship we discussed with athletes what would take
their sports to the next level.
We then developed this Urban Freeride Event concept with these mountain
bikers in Boston. It took 2 years to do it, Red Bull spent a lot of money
behind the development, and we at no point mass-marketed the event to the
general consumer. We focused on key outlets in the market – that is mountain
biking stores, mountain biking shops, and mountain biking trails. We
marketed the event to these constituencies because those are the people in the
scene who want to see their sport progress. But we did not put $20 million
behind advertising for the event for the general consumer. We just had
posters developed for the event that were posted at a few bike shops around
the business unit. We wanted to make sure that the event stayed true to the
scene and true to the actual sport.
If you look at the way we market our brand at these events, all the branding
is functional. We do not put banners up. We do not put our logo all over
the place. We make sure that wherever you find the Red Bull logo, it is either
on a jump, kicker, launching pad, or start gate. We want to make sure that
our logo is serving a function for that event. We also put a lot of emphasis on
making sure that for TV production the branding works for the different
camera angles. So when we look at events, we never do it for the mass market;
we do it for the scene.
380 ADVANCED THEORY AND PRACTICE IN SPORT MARKETING