Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."
Red Bull really ran the marketing playbook that GoPro should have done: become known for athletes doing extreme things. Instead they stayed too technical and product-based and didn't build a brand beyond "we make action cameras."
Red Bull doesn’t just market, they bankroll and support.
Most companies just sponsor a team or something, but Red Bull has paid for the baseline infrastructure of many sports.
There is an old saying that Red Bull is a marketing company that happens to sell energy drinks
Well that is pretty much true. It's founder was a marketing director for a consumer goods brand.
yep, and there's no reason why a company with that brand couldn't be selling action cameras, or shoes (Nike), or anything adjacent to extreme sports
GoPro would fit right in there with the Red Bull brand, as a matter of fact.
They really have tried.
They don't have the type of insane cashflow that RedBull does to sponsor tons of athletes and weird events, but their video contests are kind of a big deal in the action sports community.
AKA, their Line of the Winter[1] competition for skiing, or their Best Line conest for MTB[2] that they used to run. And they're the title sponsor for the GoPro Mountain Games[3].
They're still THE action sports cameara carried in a lot of outdoor equipment stores, but the Insta360 has really dominated social media recently, and their products are currently a better value for cost/performance.
[1] https://gopro.com/en/us/awards/line-of-the-winter [2] https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-gopro-of-the-world-b... [3] https://mountaingames.com/
It’s not just the cash flow, it’s the margins.
Redbulls gross margins are probably 90%. It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.
You can do a lot of great promotions if the cost of your product is a rounding error.
> It’s basically just water, sugar, and caffeine sold for $3.
... and some of their products don't even have sugar!
So how many minutes of that playbook do you suppose the annual budget of Gopro would be able to pay for?