Competition is the presence of substitutes in the market . It brings in an interesting element in the marketing strategies for any product. Competitors can be any one :- be it the product with same features but different brand, enjoying more or less the similar brand loyalty as yours, or a product which is not a close substitute. For example for coke , apart from Pepsi and other cold beverage brands, even drinks like nimboo pani and sugar cane juice from a small outlet are its competition.

 

Red Bull being the first mover in the energy drinks category had an advantage of creating a strong brand for itself without any competitors around. Like any other new to the world product category, the success of Red Bull made other brands to come up and compete with the brand. To compete with these brands, Red Bull came up with many successful and defensive marketing strategies.

Energy Drinks have become very famous in the last decade. During the last ten years, there were established hundreds of them around the world. The energy drink market continues to grow even in light of the tough economy and increased health scrutiny. Soda sales have been declining steadily over the same period, while energy drink sales have been booming.

 

Red Bull's COMPETITORS :-

 

Red Bull continues to dominate “The Top Brands” chart with over 40% of the market share.

 

Since the main purpose of Red bull is to give energy, any product solving the same problem will be its competitor. In India, products such as Glucose-D, Blue, Rio, Tzinga are its direct competitors where as tea and coffee will be its indirect competitors.

 

 

 

Ohmae's 3C model :-

 

The 3c model provides competitive advantage over others.
Its three main elements include customer, competition and company/corporation.
 
a. Customer
For the long term success, customers are the main focus for any firm. The choice they make regarding the purchase directly affects the firm's marketing strategies. To retain the present customers and attract new ones, company makes a lot of efforts. Hence, customer is the centre of all the marketing strategies a company makes. Red Bull has a very strong customer/consumer base. It has managed to maintain its loyalists through some aggressive guerrilla marketing.
 
b. Competition
To stay above the competition, company has to differentiate its offering from that of its competitors operating in same market. Red Bull has come up with different variant in energy drink. Some of these variants didn't fare well due to the taste factor and some are doing well.

Presence of competitors gives customers a lot of choices. To make your product their first choice is what every company looks for.
 
c. Company
A company needs to carefully evaluate both the short term and long term strategies to beat competition and have a sustainable competitive advantage.
Apart from television and print & radio advertising Red Bull has a distinctive approach to marketing. It uses a progressive marketing strategy where in it aims to constantly evolve and develop the brand. This approach allows Red Bull to engage with consumers using new and exciting channels of communication. It also uses buzz-marketing strategy where it engages customers through sports events. It supports 500 world class athletes that compete in record breaking events across the globe.