But Caroline chose not to get angry and rough up her younger brother because she needed to do more important things right now. Honestly she needed inspiration and the creativity of her younger brother for the next action of Red Bull. She took a deep breath and decided to simply ask for advice in a humble way, because she knew if someone seriously asked for advice Simon would always try his best, especially when it comes to his family.
"Ok Simon, enough with the joking around. Red Bull will go on sale soon, a few weeks before Christmas. We will release a special on Christmas with a nice coconut flavor. Everything is ready and the production capacity is already prepared. We can produce roughly 5000 Liter per hour right now, which equals roughly 20000 cans of Red Bull per Hour. This leads to us being able to produce 10 million cans of Red Bull in one month.
Of course this large amount will be divided across all of America, which is actually not a lot when you compare it like that. But for the start this will be enough, as the price of Red Bull is quite high, with 1,29$ per can, and it is considered as a premium product. We will use a premium price strategy for Red Bull since the very start of the product.
The production company and the initial production of the nearly 8 million cans of Red Bull are extremely costly, which leaves us with not much of a start budget for the marketing campaign. We now need a most effective way to bring Red Bull to the customers. We can't just buy football clubs or hire the best stars right now, because we simply don't have the money. There needs to be an easier and more cost effective way. Can you think of a solution?"
Simon was glad his sister didn't just try to use the marketing plan he told her at the beginning but realized that Red Bull was not quite yet the giant it would be in the future and couldn't just use money to buy the easy way forward.
But he already thought of a quite interesting solution for the initial start of Red Bull which not only gives Red Bull insane sales channels at the beginning but even helps Atari with marketing and sales.
"Well, I actually thought of an interesting approach. How about we sell special arcade machines that are designed with the Red Bull logo and our marketing slogan "Red Bull gives you wings!".
There is no need to use any money in order to start the game, but you need to scan a bottle of Red Bull. You can just use some very easy scanning system and print a small code on every Red Bull bottle. Or maybe you can come up with an easier way to identify the Red Bull can, that's up to you and your team.
Anyways, you can start a nationwide event, where the highest scores on any Red Bull arcade machine, whether on Snake or on the new game Tetris, will receive cash prizes. You can go as far as putting the prize money for the first scores in Snake and Tetris to one Million US dollars. Overall this marketing campaign will cost no more than five million US dollars, but you will certainly be featured in every newspaper in America and you gain all the sales channels of the arcade machines.
Whether it is supermarkets, or bars or any large scale events we sell arcade machines to, Red Bull will be there. They can not only test the attitude of customers to Red Bull, but also feel the revenue from the premium product Red Bull.
On top of that, you can show all the arcade gamers around America just how effective Red Bull is as an energy drink. They will definitely have greater results on the Red Bull arcade machine than the standard arcade machine. Ones they realize that Red Bull is really improving their ability to work they will even use it in their everyday life."
The more Simon talked about his vision of the first marketing campaign, the more Caroline got excited. This was a great way for her to spread the influence of Red Bull and even involve the wealthy Atari in the process. This way she might be relieved of some of the burden when it comes to the cost. But she was unsure of how to approach the contact with the Atari management.
"Do you think Dennis and Tanja will agree to this proposal? The factory in Staten Island won't receive any impact, but their parts supplier would either need to directly produce parts with the Red Bull design or they would need to add an additional painter for every part. This would increase the cost of the product by a lot. I don't want you to suppress them if it is against the interest of Atari."
Simon was feeling quite touched by his sister's concern for him, but there was actually no need. They might suffer a little bit when it comes to immediate benefit, but he already thought of a solution for the future.
"Well, you can tell them an alliance with Red Bull will certainly be of great benefit for Atari in the future. For now we can just increase the price for the special Red Bull arcade machine, compared to the standard arcade machine. Many bars with ambition will happily pay a little more if they can use the effect of our nationwide event in order to highlight their bar.
On top of that Red Bull and Atari will face the same problem in the coming years. Both of them will face competitors that will copy their product and reduce the price in order to get a share of the large market. Red Bull will face cheap energy drinks and Atari will face cheap arcade machines on a large scale.
An alliance between the two companies will make sure that the premium arcade market and the premium beverage market will stay in their hands in the future. This benefit alone is already enough to fully cover this marketing campaign. Atari still has more than enough funds to cover the rest of your campaign costs.
I believe Dennis and Tanja will certainly understand the massive benefits of this campaign and the future alliance with Red Bull. As long as we can hold the premium market in our own hands, we will never need to worry about future competitors."