Importance of Marketing Mix Strategies: A Comparison of Red Bull and Lucozade

This report analyzes the importance of marketing mix strategies and evaluates them for Red Bull and Lucozade. It compares their target markets, product offerings, pricing strategies, promotional techniques, and distribution channels. The report concludes with recommendations for improving marketing mix strategies to sustain competition.

Principles of Marketing

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Aim: The aim of this report is to analyse the importance of marketing mix strategies and to
evaluate these elements for two chosen brands Red Bull and Lucozade.
Method: For analysing the brands secondary sources are used. Concepts of marketing mix from
various books and journals are analysed and linked with the secondary information of brands
obtained from online sources.
Result: It has been analysed from the study that for sustainable performance marketing mix
strategies must be improved for both brands.
Conclusion: Thus it can be concluded that significant improvements must be made in pricing and
promotional methods and marketing mix must be selected in a way to address the needs of target
customers.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
FINDINGS.......................................................................................................................................3
Comparing target markets............................................................................................................3
Product.........................................................................................................................................4
Price.............................................................................................................................................4
Promotion....................................................................................................................................5
Place.............................................................................................................................................5
RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION............................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Marketing strategies are known as the organizational approaches which affect the
perception of customers towards brand and directly influences the profitability of the companies
Thus for success marketing strategies plays vital role. This report will provide a comparison of
target market and marketing mix strategies of Red Bull and Lucozade energy drinks. Red bull
energy drink is product of Red Bull GmbH and in the year 2016 had highest market share in the
world with revenue of 6.03 billion euro (Red Bull and their Marketing strategy, 2018). The drink
gets tough competition by its rival Lucozade which has been known to be the biggest brand of
UK in energy drinks. This report will evaluate the strategies of both brands to analyse how they
have been able to compete successfully in the market.
FINDINGS
Comparing target markets
The target market and segmentation strategies of Red Bull are more diverse and strong.
Red Bull products are served in both domestic and international market. The brand offers vast
range of products for different segments. Like Red Bull energy drinks are for targeting people of
age group 16-30 while the sugar free drinks are for age group 26-45 only. These drinks target
both males and females and are usually for both bachelors and newly married couples without
children. Since organisation follow premium pricing the brand targets people with high income
which may belong to middle or upper social class. On the other hand Lucozade segmentation
strategies are more focused on domestic level. Their target customers are people with middle or
low income which can choose brand on basis of its low pricing (Wood and Jobber, 2016). Red
Bull mainly target people in occupations like students, employees and professional. On the other
side Lucozade mainly target sportsmen and sports women of age group 16-40. Lucozade
products aims to target mainly young adults who are fitness and health conscious while those of
Red Bull targets at people who just need a relaxation energy drinks which can relax their mind
and body.

Product
Lucozade is known to be the carbonated energy drink which boosts the energy of people.
Another drink Red Bull also aims to help customers with energy needs against mental issues or
work tiredness. As per Levitt model organisations must provide different types of products so
that their positioning can be strengthened. The first level of this model is core product. Both the
brands are dealing with energy drinks which focus on enhancing energy level of people. Another
level is generic products. For instance Lucozade and Red bull both are providing soft drinks with
higher energy content in different types of flavours which attract customers.
In energy drinks segment customers usually expect service providers about good
packaging, cans, various sizes and plenty of options to choose from along with the freshness and
good taste with high energy content (Lahtinen, Dietrich and Rundle-Thiele, 2020). In this context
both brands can be considered as effective in providing extended product. Augmented products
which overwhelm or exceed consumer expectations are also effectively managed by both brands.
For instance along with different flavours Lucozade also has range of low calorie drinks for
health conscious customers and sports drinks prepared especially for athletes. To compete with
this Red bull also has flavour and zero sugar drinks (Lahtinen, Dietrich and Rundle-Thiele,
2020). A good augmented product of Red bull is drink mixers. Further Lucozade has glucose as
main content while Red Bull content has variety of energy supply elements like caffeine, vitamin
B, glucose as well as taurine.
Price
As compare to Red bull the prices of Lucozade are less. Red bull is much earlier player in
energy drink sector but still organisation follow competitor pricing so that its customers can be
retained for long term (Arab, 2018). However Red bull prices are considered as the highest as
compare to its other competitors including Lucozade. For gaining competitive benefit Lucozade
has been effective in terms of its production cost.
Red Bull Lucozade
Price per 100 ml bottle £1.3~2.02 £0.78~1.30

Though high quality drinks of Red Bull does not affect the consumer decision making due to
higher prices but still organisation make efforts to remain competitive by pricing strategy. For
this purpose Red Bull adopt strategy to lower its pricing on bulk purchasing. Like sugar free
energy drinks of 12 x 250 ml pack costs for £12.50 while same product with pack 8 x 250 ml
costs £6.25 (Sports & Energy Drinks, 2020). This pricing strategy increases bulk purchasing of
products among customers. Thus it can be said that pricing strategy of Red bull is quite much
more effective in terms of increasing sales and profitability.
Promotion
Promotion techniques are known to be one of the key marketing strategies which affect
the competitive positioning of both the brands. For promotions Lucozade uses various
advertising methods like social media, magazines as well as televisions. Further organisation also
uses endorsements from famous personalities which make brand more popular and preferred
choice among customers (Halim, Amiruddin and Isham, 2020). However the direct marketing of
brand is channelled through front office personalities instead of personal selling. Similarly the
promotional techniques used by Red Bull are appreciated by its unique tag lines and active
participation in sports events by sponsorships.
Along with the famous athletes and celebrates Red Bull also endorse popular brands for
promotion of its services (DIXIT, 2020). In comparison of the promotional strategy of both the
brands it has been also identified that Lucozade adopt collaboration with other brands more
successfully. For instance its collaboration with music site Spotify and Iphone winning offers
gain huge response from the young customers. As compare to Red Bull, Lucozade always try to
include emotional appealing in its advertisements. For instance in one of the advertisement brand
showed emotional bond between mother and son which was greatly appreciated by the target
customers (Ikechi, Chinenye and Chiyem, 2017). The advertisements of Red Bull have
enthusiastic tag lines which justify its vision but they seem to have limited emotional appealing.
However both brands integrate limited promotion approaches using digital techniques.
Place
The distribution channel of Red Bull is more effective and managed which has made
organisation successful not only in UK but also across the world. Red Bull has channel
management in more than 170 countries with uniform level of success and distribution channel.

On the other hand Lucozade has been successful more in United Kingdom and very limited
presence outside UK. Lucozade drinks are available at retail stores, sport centres, gyms, bread
stores as well as on online platforms.
Red bull drink is also available to its customers at different convenient places liked retail
or supermarket outlets as well as in casinos, bars and night club. Red bull products are also
provided in bulk so that customers can save money and can buy as many as product they want.
The exclusive refrigerators of Red Bull are also feature of attraction for customers which not
keep drink chilled and fresh but also make brand easily distinguished from others (Bruskova,
2019). The brand Lucozade is more preferred as health and energy boosting glucose based drink
and thus it also has association with the pharmacies and other health care facilities. Both drinks
have been successful in managing distribution network and their targeted customers can easily
access them.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above comparison that both brands are performing
satisfactory but they need to make some necessary reformations in their marketing mix strategies
to sustain growing competition. It has been analysed that personal marketing is given less
priority by both the brands thus they must enhance their customer experience. For this purpose it
is recommended that both brands must consider the options such as email marketing, social
media campaigns as well as emotional intelligence in product marketing. Red Bull follow
premium pricing which is successful however for increasing market share organisation can also
plan to introduce new augmented products which can be even served at low prices (Salem,
2019). It will make organisation successful to gain the attention of customers whose selection
criteria depends upon pricing strategy. In terms of promotion strategy and product quality
Lucozade is performing well but it must emphasising on increasing its distribution network so
that its products are also available globally with same success as they are available in UK. Thus
it can also be said that with regular improvements in marketing mix strategies as per situational
or business changes brands can improve their performance and profitability.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Arab, N., 2018. Relationship between dimensions of Brand Equity and 4Ps of Marketing Mix-
Place, Product, Promotion, & Price: Coca Cola-Consumer Based Qualitative Survey.
Bruskova, O., 2019. MARKETING MIX (THE CONCEPT OF 4PS). In Public Relations as a
Brand Awareness Booster (pp. 22-27).
DIXIT, P., 2020. Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning-Principles of Marketing.
HALIM, M.B.B.A., AMIRUDDIN, N.N.B. and ISHAM, F.F.I.B.M., 2020. The impact of
marketing mix (4p’s) on consumer purchase intention of cosmetics product.
Ikechi, A., Chinenye, E.P. and Chiyem, O., 2017. Marketing Mix Concept: Blending the
Variables to Suit the Contemporary Marketers. International Academic Journal of
Management and Marketing, 9(1), pp.55-65.
Lahtinen, V., Dietrich, T. and Rundle-Thiele, S., 2020. Long live the marketing mix. Testing the
effectiveness of the commercial marketing mix in a social marketing context. Journal
of Social Marketing.
Salem, S., 2019. Marketing Mix.
Wood, M.B. and Jobber, L., 2016. The marketing plan handbook. Pearson.
Online
Red Bull and their Marketing strategy. 2018. [Online]. Accessed through
<https://medium.com/@edcbitmesra/red-bull-and-their-marketing-strategy-
6015ac99da3b>
Sports & Energy Drinks. 2020. [Online]. Accessed through
<https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/shop/drinks/sports-and-energy-drinks/all>