Red Bull Environmental Scan

Red Bull’s popularity and status as the number one energy drink in the market reflects the importance allocated to marketing. The company’s hegemony in the energy drink industry is a reflection of their adherence to a multifaceted strategic management plan that considers the imperativeness of environmental factors. As competition increases, companies strive to differentiate themselves through common shared principles to retain customers. In the case of Red Bull and their annual sales of “4,204 billion cans and average annual growth of 7.6%” (Red Bull USA, 2012), it can be argued that the company has acquired an almost absolute advantage. Red Bull has created competitive strategies for its segment of the industry and continues to dominate most of their competition. The company prides itself on their ability to entice consumers on the singularity of its merchandise, brand recognition, competitive price offers, and convenience on domestic and international levels. Armstrong and Kotler define environmental/situational influences as “all those factors particular to a time and place that do not follow from a knowledge of the stable attributes of the consumer and the stimulus and that have an effect on current behavior” (Armstrong & Kotler, 2011). Red Bull understands the pertinence of these factors in the decision-making process and therefore, engineers its marketing and sales strategies in accordance. In order to deliver value to the company and its shareholders, Red Bull’s environmental scan considers factors such as stakeholder analysis, the energy drink industry/market, competitor analysis, demographic variables, psychographic variables, and economic trends.
In regard to stakeholders, Red Bull utilizes the P.E.S.T (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological) model of analysis. In regard to Political Stakeholders, the company is subject to the mandates of both domestic and international institutions and the international, domestic, and federal governments and

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