Event Marketing – the Lessons from Red Bull Strategy

There are few brands that can offer more lessons in how to approach the next generation of marketing than Red Bull. Focusing their strategy on earned media, cultural integration and value creation, Red Bull’s approach is pioneering, and a template that many brands would love to follow. However it’s also proven a difficult strategy to replicate, specifically because just how different it is from the traditional marketing model. It’s definitely not just about sponsoring a couple of youth events and calling it a day. The scale of Red Bull’s commitment to non-traditional marketing is unprecedented. As far back as a decade ago, Red Bull was spending more than 80% of their significant marketing budget on non-measured media. That’s completely inverse to the traditional marketing formula of focusing on packaged communication messages and the broadcast media to spread them. Core to Red Bull’s success has been their unique strategy of focusing on brand-owned events. It struck me that one of the best ways to make the point about what it takes to seriously succeed at their level and at this game was to show the scale they are operating on. Creating vs sponsoring After sponsoring a handful of existing events early in the brand’s history, Red Bull made a strategic decision to create their own events and have followed this direction consistently ever since. This is a hugely important differentiator for them, and sets them a league apart from sponsor brands : . Early investment becomes equity As a sponsor brand, the more important and popular the event becomes, the more it costs. However Red Bull’s initial investment in creating the event quickly starts paying compound interest, and as the event grows in stature they reap all of the rewards while costing them only the maintenance of re-running the event. 2. Sole-branding Most big events have their platinum, gold and silver sponsors. How much are brands really getting out of these sponsor ships? And if you want to distinguish your brand by putting your name on the event, be prepared to shell out mega bucks. Red Bull on the other hand is the title sponsor for every one of these ninety events, and their branding is ubiquitous and seamlessly integrated into the event rather than tacked on and diluted amongst a hundred other sponsors. There is no question who is putting on the event and responsible for bringing it to everyone and making it happen. 3. Authenticity and credibility For me there is a big difference with a brand simply paying to have their logo attached to something, and with a brand who puts their energy, resources, and creativity to work in bringing something to life themselves, even if it is of course delivered behind the scenes by a host of event and activation agencies. There’s a different level of commitment involved, and a different type of authenticity and credibility is conferred to the brand as a result. Successful creation signals commitment to and deep understanding of the space, whereas anyone can pay to logo-ize something. I’m not saying sponsorship is always a bad thing by any stretch, but I’d argue it definitely lacks the same resonance with the audience. 4. Underground up There is something powerful about how so many of these Red Bull events started out small and local, and have grown to be big and hugely important and influential amongst the athletes and their fans. Athletes themselves say voluntarily that many of these events are as important or second only to the X-Games in stature and importance to their career. This is huge for authenticity with their target. Red Bull has grown up with it’s audience, and them with it. 5. Control Last point on creation vs sponsorship is about control. Namely, when you own the event, you do what you want with it. You control the promotion, the PR, the messaging, the branding, when it happens, where it happens, who’s involved. Everything. Even as a long-term sponsor of an event, you are ultimately at the mercy of the event’s owners and along for the ride. Longevity Many brands flit from campaign to campaign, with their event activation a tacked on component that is rarely addressed consistently. Getting ommitment to ongoing events from a brand can be near impossible. Red Bull is fundamentally different in this regard. They create experiences that generate value for the brand and then they build equity in them consistently over time, just as most brands would do with important product innovations and sub-brands. This is hugely cost effective compared to reinventing the wheel every year, a nd it ensures the brand becomes fundamentally woven into the lives of the athletes and influential consumers they wish to reach, as Red Bull is guaranteed to be part of their year, every year. Plus the audience often scales in size annually. Flugtag and Red Bull Soap Box race are now yearly highlights for many consumers, reaching in-person audiences of hundreds of thousand of people in many cities. In Brazil over one million people turned up for the Red Bull Air Race. From the list below you can see sponsorship of some events such as Flugtag reaching back all the way to 1991, but the vast majority of the events they’ve created over the years are still ongoing, year after year. Depth and breadth. Another key differentiator with Red Bull is the incredible effort they have gone to in order to â€Å"own† action sports and become embedded in youth culture across the board. They have quite literally gone after every action sport you can think of, and in a number of cases essentially created their own sports. They’ve since started attacking music and art with the same vigour. Where most brands are happy to tack on their logo to a handful of events in a year and call it a sponsorship strategy, Red Bull is literally ubiquitous. In many cases they are absolutely essential to the vitality of the sports they sponsor. Use creativity to reinforce the brand and create cut-through Looking down the list, another thing becomes immediately clear — all of the events sound awesome. â€Å"Last Man Standing†. â€Å"Down and Dirty†. â€Å"Exodus†. â€Å"Chopper Assault†. â€Å"City Rage†. â€Å"Heavy Metal†. Red Bull have used crazy sounding and subversive names to build excitement around events before you’ve even heard of them to and to indelibly stamp them as â€Å"Red Bull†. Additionally, Red Bull seek out and create a sense of drama and the spectacular with each event to rival anything Evel Knieval could’ve ever imagined. Downhill bike racing through Rio’s most notorious barrios? Wakeboarding in the dark in a flooded mine? Motocross duelling in bullrings? Roller derby on ice skates? Red Bull has made it their mission to bring barely imaginable experiences into existence, and give them all the spectacle and pomp of a â€Å"real† sport. And then to do it again, year after year. Create shareable content and earn your media How can Red Bull possibly afford all this? Well, they do the opposite thing most brands do. Most brands spend a tiny bit on content, and then 10x as much on media to try and spread that content as far as possible, because people aren’t really that interested in what they are saying so they have to get it in front of eyeballs by force. Which of course then diminishes the value of reaching those people, given they would rather you weren’t. Red Bull was doing earned media before it was a buzzword. They invest in unique, compelling experiences, and in the creation of content from those experiences. They get a significant amount of very deep and powerful brand interaction at the actual experiences themselves, both from participants and spectators. And then through a combination of PR, word of mouth, and pull media channels they get an absolute ton of exposure of their content. And through platforms like their popular Facebook page, content-rich website, Red Bulletin, and a legion of popular microsites and brand communities like FMXWorld, Red Bull can legitimately claim to be a media brand in its own right at a time when most brands are still talking about the idea. The reason Red Bull is so exciting as a brand and a case study to so many is they’ve flipped the traditional advertising model on it’s head. They invest most of their budget in experiences, content and media assets, and allocate comparably little to actual media itself. They trust if they build cool things, people will seek it out and talk about it, and they are right. From a Brandweek article from 2001: In the antithesis of any major’s marketing plan, Red Bull buys traditional advertising last. Only when a market is deemed mature does the company begin a media push. The idea is to reinforce, not introduce, the brand. â€Å"Media is not a tool that we use to establish the market,† said vp-marketing David Rohdy. â€Å"It is a critical part. It’s just later in the development. † The brand spent $100 million in the U. S. last year, according to the company Measured media spending was only $18. 9 million last year, up from $9 million in 1999, per Competitive Media Reporting. In a way their model is to first build targeted, ubiquitous relevance rather than broad mass awareness. They don’t blast out, they focus deep and then bubble up. And the latter approach gives them a much stronger and longer-lasting foundation for their activity, and costs them less. Paid media fits into the mix later to solidify the position, but it’s an enhancer rather than the foundation. Mix global platforms and local activation Red Bull is looking for the ultimate blend of local relevance and cost-effective impact. So they have a chaotic but effective mix of global platforms such as Flugtag and Air Race and tens of locally focused events. Many events start out locally and then get rolled out across regions as the template is perfected. Living and creating with your audiences I think I got this insight out of one of the many great Mobile Youth presentations on Red Bull. Basically the point is everything Red Bull do is about creating and living with their audience, rather than messaging at them. What else? I think you can probably tell from this post and the preceding list that I’m a massive fan of Red Bull’s strategy. It’s unique, it’s effective, and it has a lot to say about where the next generation of marketing is heading. Would love to hear what other lessons you’ve taken from Red Bull’s approach, and what other brands you think are doing this right.

Factors Influencing Growth and Development Essay

The environmental impacts on one’s behavior can often determine factors that will shape future behaviors. During critical and sensitive periods development can be greatly affected. Critical periods occur when the existence of certain types of environmental stimuli become necessary for development to continue conventionally. It is theorized that development during the critical period is easily influenced, specifically in the area of personality and social development. On the other hand, during sensitive periods the organism becomes particularly vulnerable to certain types of stimuli in their environment. Unlike critical periods, the absence of stimuli in a sensitive period does not always result in immutable consequences. Societal influences are believed to play a large role on the environmental impacts of development. The way we have been socialized or conditioned is a response to environmental stimuli. For instance, gender is something socially constructed and society places expectations on individuals according to their gender, which will determine the roles they will later fulfill in society. A publication from U.C. Santa Cruz states the following of gender acquisition and the societal influences that are perpetuated around them. Gender stereotypes in infants are perpetuated by society’s expectations and perceptions. Societal influences, preconceived notions and expectations enforce already existing gender stereotypes†¦ Read more: Essay explain how children and young people’s development is influenced by a range of personal factors. In the study of forty-eight children, their mothers, and 16 college students, gender based stereotypes influenced interaction with infants which in turn socialized the infants to conform to their respective gender role. Ratings of the female infants centered on their small size and beauty. Male infants are judged usually according to their ability and intelligence. While evidence of gender stereotyping in infant ratings are becoming less dominant after adolescence, sex stereotyping in adults’ behavior towards infants has changed little. Obviously, society shapes the gender stereotypes that both children and adults hold. (Rivera, 1996)

Shakespeare Sonnet 2 - Analysis

Shakespeare Sonnet 2 - Analysis Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2: When Forty Winters Shall Besiege Thy Brow is interesting because it further expresses his desire for the subject of his poem to breed. This theme is introduced in Sonnet 1 and continues through to poem 17. The poem advises the fair youth that when he is old and looks withered and terrible he can, at least, point to his son and say that he has passed on his beauty to him. However, if he does not breed, he will have to live with the shame of simply looking old and withered. In short, a child would compensate for the ravages of aging. Through metaphor, the poem suggests that you can live your life through your child if necessary. The child would provide evidence that he was once beautiful and worthy of praise. The full text of the sonnet can be read here:  Sonnet 2. Sonnet 2: Facts Sequence:  Second sonnet in the  Fair Youth Sonnets.Key Themes:  Old age, procreation, a child providing evidence of one’s worth, Winter, obsession with the fair youth’s beauty.Style: Written in iambic pentameter and follows the traditional sonnet form. Sonnet 2: Translation When forty winters have passed, you will have aged and become wrinkly. Your youthful looks, so admired as they are now, will be gone. Then if anyone asks you where your beauty lies, where the worth of your youthful, lusty days is evident, you could say: â€Å"Within mine own deep sunken eyes.† But that would be shameful and not praiseworthy if you didn’t have a child to show off and say this is evidence of my beauty and the reason for my aging. The child’s beauty is proof of mine: â€Å"Proving his beauty by succession thine.† The child would be youthful and beautiful when you are old and would remind you of being young and warm-blooded when you are cold. Sonnet 2: Analysis Being forty years old in Shakespeare’s time would likely have been considered to be a â€Å"good old age†, so when forty winters had passed, you would have been considered old. In this sonnet, the poet is giving almost fatherly advice to the fair youth. He does not appear to be interested in the fair youth romantically himself in this poem but is encouraging a heterosexual union. However, the preoccupation with the fair youth and his life choices soon becomes quite overwhelming and obsessive. The sonnet takes a subtly different tack from Sonnet 1 (where he says that if the fair youth does not breed it would be selfish of him and the world would regret it). In this sonnet, the poet suggests that the fair youth would feel shame and would personally regret it himself – perhaps the speaker does so to appeal to the narcissistic side of the fair youth, pointed to in Sonnet 1. Perhaps a narcissist would not care what the world thinks, but would care what he may feel himself in later life?

Definition and Examples of Etymon in Linguistics

Definition and Examples of Etymon in Linguistics In historical linguistics, an etymon is a word, word root, or  morpheme  from which a later form of a word derives. For instance, the etymon of the English word etymology is the Greek word etymos (meaning true). Plural etymons or etyma. Put another way, an etymon is the original word (in the same language or in a foreign language) from which a present-day word has evolved. Etymology:  From the Greek, true meaning The Misleading Etymology of Etymology [W]e have to avoid being misled by the etymology of the word etymology itself; we have inherited this term from a pre-scientific period in the history of language study, from a time when it was supposed (with varying degrees of seriousness) that etymological studies would lead to the etymon, the true and genuine meaning. There is no such thing as the etymon of a word, or there are as many kinds of etymon as there are kinds of etymological research. (James Barr, Language and Meaning. E.J. Brill, 1974) The Meaning of Meat In Old English, the word meat (spelled mete) mainly meant food, especially solid food, found as late as 1844... The Old English word mete came from the same Germanic source as Old Frisian mete, Old Saxon meti, mat, Old High German maz, Old Icelandic matr, and Gothic mats, all meaning food. (Sol Steinmetz, Semantic Antics. Random House, 2008) Immediate and Remote Etymons Frequently a distinction is made between an immediate etymon, i.e. the direct parent of a particular word, and one or more remote etymons. Thus Old French frere is the immediate etymon of Middle English frere (modern English friar); Latin frater, fratr- is a remote etymon of Middle English frere, but the immediate etymon of Old French frere. (Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford University Press, 2009) Sack and Ransack; Disk, Desk, Dish, and Dais   The etymon of ransack is Scandanavian rannsaka (to attack a house)(hence to rob), whereas sack (plundering) is a borrowing of French sac in phrases like mettre sac (to put to sack)... An extreme case of five English words reflecting the same etymon is discus (an 18th-century borrowing from Latin), disk or disc (from French disque or straight from Latin), desk (from Medieval Latin but with the vowel changed under the influence of an Italian or a Provenà §al form), dish (borrowed from Latin by Old English), and dais (from Old French). (Anatoly Liberman, Word Origins . . . and How We Know Them. Oxford University Press, 2005)​ Roland Barthes on Etymons: Triviality and Satisfaction [I]n Fragments dun discours amoureux  [1977], [Roland] Barthes demonstrated that etymons can provide insights into the historical polyvalence of words and the transferral of alternate meanings from one epoch to another, For example, triviality can certainly become quite a different concept when compared with the etymon trivialis which means what is found at all crossroads.  Or the word satisfaction assumes different identities when compared with  the etymons  satis (enough) and satullus (drunk). The variance between current common usage and the etymological definition exemplifies the evolution of the meanings of the same words for different generations. (Roland A. Champagne,  Literary History in the Wake of Roland Barthes: Re-defining the Myths of Reading. Summa, 1984)

How To Make Giant Unpoppable Bubbles

How To Make Giant Unpoppable Bubbles Ordinary soap bubbles are beautiful  but fragile. You can make stronger bubbles by using a homemade bubble recipe. These bubbles are thicker and sturdier than regular soap bubbles, so you can pick them up and examine them. Heres how to make giant bubbles that are harder to pop: Unpoppable Giant Bubble Recipe 1 cup regular dishwashing liquid1/2 cup light corn syrup Mix together the ingredients to make the solution. You can double the recipe for more solution. Another option is to mix corn syrup into your regular bubble solution. This thickens the liquid so it sticks better to a bubble wand and forms thicker bubbles that are easier to blow into large shapes. Its easier to pick up smaller bubbles than larger ones, so choose regular-sized bubbles to pick up and handle. Another trick is to wet your finger or the back of a plastic spoon in the solution so you  wont be as likely to burst the bubble when you catch it. How It Works Ordinary soap bubbles trap a thin layer of water between soap molecules. Often glycerin is added to bubble solution to slow down the rate of evaporation of the water so bubbles last longer. Corn syrup also helps prevent bubbles from popping when they dry out. When you combine detergent and corn syrup you get a strong bubble that is a cross between a regular soap bubble and a sugar polymer bubble.

The Dialectic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Dialectic - Essay Example He used crude ways and strategies to get back to the perpetrators of the inhuman acts. This makes the novel to be a captivating tale of bloodlines that exist between evil and ideological good. V is a freedom fighter. He is the only person who dares take the government on, and to point out that they are wrong. He blows up some structures to make a statement against the dictatorship. He executes some guilty people who were being protected from punishment In this novel, the character V specifically condemns the local people more than the government as the cause of the dominant oppression and mistreatment that is ongoing. He blames the people for not reacting to the various exploitation, oppression or fraud they experience in the country. He classifies this issue as a responsibility displacement. He says, â€Å"You gave them the power to make your decisions for you† (Moore 117). This means that people have the power to make their own decisions but they have bowed to the oppressors and given them the authority and responsibility to decide on their behalf. He strived to change this mind set by insisting that people do as they please. He incited individuals to become solely responsible for their lives’ experiences. In the novel, V discourages the local people from shrinking or becoming complacent and letting other people decide their lives for them. He insisted that all people have equal chances and right so no one should b ully the others and make decisions for them. He believed that the citizens themselves were responsible for the shambles that existed in the country. He suggested that people’s submissiveness to the oppressors was what allowed the oppression evil to prevail in the country. He changed people’s perception and motivated them to take action since inaction only brought discrimination and exploitation to them. What the character V does is necessary even though it appears to be very evil.

Morphine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Morphine - Essay Example hat these other common drugs either match in action the effects of morphine when acted upon by the enzymes, or they increase the effectiveness of the enzymes resulting in a faster, or more concentrated catalytic effect (â€Å"Drugs.com†, 2011). In the case of lasix, which includes a psychotherapeutic and CNS-active agent the patient might experience hypotensive effects when the treatment is first administered or if either of the drugs dosage is increased. There is also a coadministration factor with vasodilators and alpha-blockers that can increase blood pressure and othostasis. This interaction is not consistent enough across all patients to come to a conclusion as to why this happens, but careful monitoring of any patient on this type of treatment method is advised (Hammack and Loprinzi, 1994). iii. Note the clinical consequences of each of the interactions (e.g. increases the plasma concentration of Drug B leading to an enhanced pharmacological effect and toxicity). In all of the drugs in the previous section (except lasix) the concern is that the drugs, when combined with morphine have an additive or synergetic effect on the toxicity and potency of both drugs thereby increasing effectiveness as well as possible side effects depending on how well individual patients metabolize the morphine. Factors that would need to be considered would include type of illness, health of the liver, enzyme production and any built up tolerance to either medication (American Pain Society, 1999). Lasix can interact with elements such as alpha blockers or vasodilators which would put more stress on the heart due to increased blood flow and/or respiratory system (American Pain Society, 1999). Section 3. Drug absorption For morphine: a. Determine and state the oral bioavailability... The study has shown that morphine is metabolized to M6G which is a potent analgesic thereby increasing the effectiveness of the drug in some situations. As a rule, the metabolism of morphine comes through uridine diphosphate glucuronosyl transferase (UGT) enzymes which are found in the liver. The enzymes form active analgesic metabolites and in some cases toxic metabolites as well. This would indicate that environmental factors that could inhibit or increase the effectiveness of morphine would include conjoint use of other drugs that reduce or inhibit the effect of liver enzymes; liver disease or a liver dysfunction and any drugs that can increase enzyme levels in the liver itself. According to the AHFS drug information the bioavailability is influenced by gastrointestinal absorption but the amount of bioavailability depends on the method that is used to administer it. In reality the bioavailability is almost 90% first pass hepatic extraction. This is supported by literature that sug gests that the clearance rate for morphine is longer in those individuals who have hepatic impairment. In most cases the morphine is metabolized in the liver and dispersed through urination. The rate of conventional oral preparations (immediate release) and the extended release oral versions are about the same but there is a difference in peak plasma concentrations which are longer and lower with the extended release oral preparation.