Chapter 775: Opportunities and Competition of Red Bull

Chapter 775: Opportunities and Competition of Red Bull

Chapter 775: Opportunities and Competition of Red Bull
Some things are beyond human control, while some things may be possible but are limited;
The disasters that have already happened and the lives lost cannot be restored, but those who survived can be helped;
What he can do now is also limited. For this kind of thing, the most important factor is to operate the machinery at the national level, so in terms of emergency relief, what he has done is basically enough;
But in the long run, I can help a lot. In the first two years after the disaster, the local area should focus on quickly restoring people's livelihood, and then start to develop the economy again after two or three years;
At that time, it was also the time of reform and opening up. Although only Shenhai City was open to the outside world in the early days of reform and opening up, any inland city in the mainland had export and foreign exchange requirements or indicators. It had Carrefour, Changxing Industry, a large number of overseas channels, etc., which would be of great help to any city.

This disaster also attracted the attention of Hong Kong society, and many people donated money and supplies;
Charitable organizations such as the Hong Kong Red Cross, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, and Po Leung Kuk quickly launched fundraising campaigns to raise funds and supplies to the disaster area; many community groups, trade unions, and hometown associations also organized donations, especially patriotic groups with ties to the mainland (such as the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong).

Hong Kong's wealthy groups also participated in the donation, including Fok Ying-tung, Li Ka-shing and others;
Hong Kong newspapers, radio stations and television stations widely reported the disaster of the TS earthquake and called on citizens to donate money and supplies.

Faced with such great enthusiasm from Hong Kong society, the mainland finally agreed to accept donated materials. Therefore, Yang Wendong's several 10,000-ton cargo ships carrying basic living materials such as sugar, grain, quilts, medicine, and medical equipment quickly sailed out of Hong Kong and headed for Tanggu Port;
TVB also specially dispatched reporters to follow, but there are conditions, that is, authorization is required to film certain places.

Changxing Film Company also announced that it would shoot an all-star movie, in which Li Xiaolong would also star. All profits from the movie would be donated, and all stars would star for free. Only some staff and minor actors would receive normal wages, but most of them refused. After all, those who could participate in this movie were all doing well and were not short of money.

The enthusiastic response from Hong Kong society also let people know that the blood between Hong Kong and the mainland is always thicker than water, and the relationship between the two sides will definitely get better and better in the future;

Yang Wendong was also happy to see such a scene. The reform would begin in a little over two years. This would be his only chance to turn his family into the world's top financial group. Only by seizing the mainland market could the Yang family be completely stable within a hundred years.
As for a hundred years later, that was not his concern. No matter how powerful Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di were, they could not control the Ming Dynasty God of War.
Time soon came to June;
While a major disaster was occurring in the mainland, the Olympic Games were being held smoothly in North America.

Red Bull placed a lot of advertisements in this Olympics, including on the clothing and daily quotes of many journalists, athletes, and social volunteers. There were also many Red Bull advertisements on the billboards during the games.
Li Xiaolong also went to watch the Olympics. Of course, he did not participate in any competitions, but as a customer. However, with his fame today, he has become the subject of interviews by many reporters, and his Red Bull-sponsored clothing and hat also increased Red Bull's exposure.

It seemed that within a short time, Red Bull became familiar to tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of people. The Red Bull drinks in supermarkets in North America and Europe were quickly cleared out, and Watsons in Hong Kong was flooded with calls for the collection of goods.

After Yang Wendong learned about the situation, he immediately came to Shatin;
"Mr. Yang, I was actually prepared. I recruited a lot of telephone operators who can speak English and increased the number of external telephones fivefold, but I didn't expect it was still not enough." Zhou Haoran said helplessly, but his face was full of smiles;
Yang Wendong nodded and said, "It's not enough to just make a phone call to urge the order. It also requires various communications and records, which is very cumbersome. We will continue to expand the number of phone calls, but be careful not to have any problems.

In addition, we need to pay more attention to production. Any product is prone to quality problems during the emergency expansion period. Ours is food. Once there is a problem, the tens of millions of dollars I invested in advertising will not only be useless, but will also kill Red Bull.”

The food and pharmaceutical industries are highly profitable, but the risks are also very high. Once something goes wrong, it can be disastrous. For example, the Morinaga arsenic milk powder incident left more than 130 people disabled and more than dead.

However, for a small business, they only need to bow, so this milk powder company has been still there.
Zhou Haoran replied, "I understand. Don't worry, Mr. Yang. I am very cautious about safety. We have a third-party laboratory and a wide range of equipment. The inspections we do are also in accordance with the highest European and American standards."

"Well, OK, Red Bull has high profits, so we should invest in it." Yang Wendong nodded, and then continued: "After this wave of advertising investment, the market may usher in a small explosion, and the turnover will also increase significantly;

This is likely to attract the attention of global beverage giants, and these big companies are likely to get involved, so we must be fully prepared in this regard.”

Sports drinks have actually been around for a long time, including in Japan and the United States. However, these brands are not keen on extensive publicity, but like other small brands, they are only promoted within their professional scope.
But for any product, the largest market is always the hundreds of millions of people. The reason why Red Bull can be successful is that it successfully promotes itself to hundreds of millions of people through various advertisements, so that they will drink Red Bull after exercise, instead of only for professional athletes.

This wave of Olympic publicity is enough to change the history of the beverage industry. Not only will these traditional sports drink companies be awakened, but giants like Coca-Cola, Nestlé, and Danone will also pay attention to this market. The most worrying thing is the combination of the two.

Zhou Haoran said: "I will continue to increase investment in future advertisements. As early as half a year ago, I booked a large number of advertisement spots on NBC. I also pre-made soft advertisement spots for many Hollywood movies.
In addition, I have also contacted many large adventure sports in Europe and the United States. In the next few years, I will sponsor them on a large scale, so that when they appear on TV, they can also see our Red Bull ads. "

"Well, okay, if the funds are insufficient, tell me and I will mobilize other funds to help you." Yang Wendong nodded and said;
Red Bull is one of my core target industries in the future, and it is also the manufacturing industry that I plan to leave behind for Hong Kong in the future. This is because high-end beverages do not care much about labor costs and do not have high requirements for the surrounding supply chain, which is very suitable for Hong Kong decades later.

Of course, it is impossible for him to do anything in Hong Kong Island, but in some economically poor places in the New Territories. The economy of Hong Kong Island itself does not need him to do anything. The people here are very rich.
Although it has the prophet effect and is one step ahead, facing traditional giants such as Coca-Cola and Nestle, Red Bull cannot say that it is 100% sure whether it can monopolize the sports drink industry as it did in the past. It can only say that it will concentrate its resources and do its best.

Once it succeeds and the market stabilizes, the net profit can be tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars a year. The return of this industry is no less than that of some electronic industries or Central Buildings, and as a manufacturing industry, its impact on the economy is also very strong.

Zhou Haoran said: "Yes, Mr. Yang."

Coca-Cola Company Headquarters, United States;

Chairman Robert and CEO Paul sat opposite each other.

Although Robert was very old, he was full of energy. He took out a document and said, "Paul, take a look at this."

"Red Bull? I know this drink. I bought it in a supermarket a year ago, but it didn't taste very good." Paul looked at the first page of the information and said, "But during this year's Canadian Olympics, this company bought advertisements like crazy, investing more money than us. I don't know what they are trying to achieve."

"They have big plans." Robert continued, "I sent someone to investigate. This company invested a lot in advertising in the early years. Last year, it invested at least tens of millions of dollars. However, because it involves a global scope, it is not obvious.
But starting this year, the investment has doubled again. At least tens of millions of dollars have been invested in the Olympics. Now they have signed agreements with dozens of adventure sports teams to provide sponsorship. In addition, they have also booked a lot of NBC advertising space in advance. It is estimated that at least 3000 million dollars will be invested in advertising this year. "3000 million dollars? This sports drink has such a high profit?" Paul was shocked;
3000 million US dollars is less than one-tenth of Coca-Cola's annual advertising expenses, but the scale of the two is more than a hundred times different. With this investment ratio, ordinary beverage companies would have gone bankrupt long ago, and only a few highly profitable industries can support it.

Robert laughed and said, "You and I both know the profit of beverages. It's just a bunch of sugar and ingredients, and the price of Red Bull is very expensive, which means that its profit margin is terrifyingly high.

But such a high profit margin, for a beverage, is only an extra $0.1, and coupled with its strong publicity, many people are still willing to pay for it.”

"Taking the high-profit route and then fully promoting it so that consumers are willing to pay, this is a very beautiful business model." After thinking for a moment, Paul praised: "The price of traditional sports drinks is not expensive, only a little more expensive than Coca-Cola, plus the small number of users and insufficient publicity, resulting in very low profits, and the entire market is very sluggish;

But Red Bull has been successful in this way, as it has simply expanded the market on a large scale. As long as consumers approve of it, it is a success.”

Many times, the cheaper the goods are, the better they are. Price-performance ratio is important, but for non-essential goods, marketing is more important. The first step is to let consumers know about the brand, and the second step is to make consumers willing to spend money to buy the brand.

Cost-effectiveness is the second step that consumers will like, but if the first step is not there, then no matter how good the second step is, it will be useless.

Without sufficient publicity, most people would not dare to buy products like beverages that need to enter the stomach. Only when the publicity is sufficient and consumers believe that the brand is safe and trustworthy, will they consider the second step;
But sports drinks are not like traditional colas. Many people do not need to buy them every day, so they are a little more expensive. As long as they are effective, most consumers can accept it.

This is a completely new business model choice. Paul is also an elite in the professional beverage industry and he quickly understood the logic behind it.

Robert nodded: "Yes, do you know who the owner of Red Bull is?"

"Who?" Paul really didn't know. Red Bull was just a small drink before, so how could he care about it.

Robert said: "Eric from Hong Kong, this person is still a little famous in the American business community today."

"Eric, I know him. KFC is also his. They also cooperated with us a little bit, buying large quantities of Coke." Paul immediately remembered and was a little surprised: "I heard that his business in Hong Kong is very successful, involving various industries in Asia. I didn't expect that he would come up with a drink like Red Bull."

Robert smiled and said, "Yes, I checked all his information. I have to say that this person is really a genius. He has been successful in many business fields and has creative thinking. He completely uses new products or business models as entry points and successfully gains the market. He is in Hong Kong and also has Coca-Cola under his name, but his main cooperation is with Pepsi."

"Are you worried that he will become our opponent?" Paul asked.

He would not take OEM with Pepsi seriously, as there are too many local enterprises like this. But if they have their own beverage brand and are so successful, then they should be cautious.

Robert smiled and said, "I'm not worried within the next ten years. No matter how powerful they are, they can't threaten us in the short term. But ten years later, it's hard to say."

"Ten years? I'm afraid we'll all be retired in ten years." Paul asked tentatively;
Robert nodded and said, "Yes, they may have retired, but we have to do something while we are still in this position. My suggestion is that we should also make sports drinks. At least we should be on the offensive side. The market itself is also very large."

The previous business model of sports drinks resulted in a very small market, so giants like Coca-Cola naturally had no interest;

But since Red Bull has taken the high-end route, it has development potential, so naturally they want to get involved and get a piece of the pie.

"Making beverages is simple. The key is branding," said Paul.

Robert smiled and said, "If we compare brands, who is more suitable than Coca-Cola?"

"That's true, but we don't have anything internally right now, so I think it would be better to acquire an existing company," Paul suggested. "That way we can quickly launch the product on the market. Otherwise, it would probably take a year or two to conduct various safety tests and market research."

"Okay, you go and do the preliminary preparations first, and I will be responsible for the approval of the board of directors." Robert said generously.

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(End of this chapter)