Conflict

ConflictOK

#academic, #capitalism, #redbull, #wingsforlife

There is an intrinsic conflict within the concept of Red Bull company. On the one hand, Red Bull energy drink is one of the unhealthiest drinks that you can find in a supermarket, while on the other, through their advertising and marketing strategy this brand has tied itself to a sporty adventurous identity. But how did they extract this potential energy out of this conflict?

The US Department for health clarifies on their website that ‘there is a growing body of scientific evidence showing that energy drinks can have serious health effects, among them are diabetes, obesity, insomnia, serious heart rhythm disturbances, and blood pressure. It can also harm children’s still-developing cardiovascular and nervous systems and increase risk-taking behavior in teenagers’ (National Center For Complementary and Integrative Health). The conflict appears when Red Bull continuously represents itself as an energetic supplement and stamina improving drink for athletes, through the sponsorship and ownership of sports teams (five soccer teams, two Formula one teams, and an ice hockey team). The Red Bull experience for the consumer doesn’t stop with drinking a can of energy drink, it becomes the extension of an athletic activity, their trace can be seen everywhere in the sport world, from motorcycle racing and cliff-jumping, to paragliding, windsurfing, and air races. (The New York Times) We might need to take into account the words that most of the time are attributed to Joseph Goebbels, to understand the strategy of Red Bull: ‘If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’

According to the group Athletic Interest, one unique marketing strategy of Red Bull is that instead of a ‘sober’ storytelling, they employ what one could call ‘story-performing’ (Youtube). For example, one of their latest events was Wings for Life World Run, an online running competition and a charity campaign with the aim of finding a cure for spinal cord injury. So, in this way every participant can become part of this ‘performance’; they will be active subjects rather than passive objects for the advertisement. ‘Red bull doesn’t do conventional marketing, they create their own stories and produce the content with their own media house.’ (Youtube) Red Bull engages with the customer in a deeper way than traditional advertising ever could.

During the Wings for Life World Run event, all the 184,236 participants in 195 countries, including people in wheelchairs, started the race at the same time (11:00 UTC). The competition didn’t have a fixed location and everyone was free to run in their hometown as much as they could. There was not an actual endpoint, therefore everyone could continue until they were caught by a virtual Red Bull catcher car that chased them via the online app. In order to participate in the event, a minimum of 15 Euros needed to be donated, which resulted in them raising 4,100,000 Euros in total. Red bull reminded visitors to their website, on every page, why they were doing this – ‘THE GOOD CAUSE’, ‘100% OF ALL ENTRY FEES AND DONATIONS TO SPINAL CORD RESEARCH”, and “WE ARE RUNNING FOR THOSE WHO CAN’T!’

It is important to note that the whole competition is based on the idea of running. This is underlined in the title: Wings For Life World Run. Paradoxically, this year’s winner was someone who was excluded from the race even before the starting pistols went off. Aron Anderson succeeded to complete 66.8 km before he was caught by the chaser car. He uses a wheelchair because of the surgical removal of cancer in his back in 1997, causing the loss of function in both of his legs. After his surgery he became a para-athlete and participated in the Paralympics.

When Anderson’s race was over, the organizers brought him immediately on to the Red Bull TV. To our surprise there’s a whole camera team by his side to cover the end of this monumental championship. The commentators are excited and passionately congratulating him until one of them asked:

– What’s in your mind brother? – I’m in pain! – You’re in champ pain! But how does it feel when the pain kicks in? – I always forget that this is so painful, it’s like giving birth. I forget the bad negative feelings after a while!

After saying goodbye to him the commentators continued: “This is a monumental achievement, with all the pain he had in his back, shoulders, and arms he finished it, because he knows why he’s out there, he’s motivated, he’s trying to achieve something spectacular.” In addition to this, I also think he was out there to make a point, to show that having a disability will not mean the end of the world, he is strong and actually, as the Red Bull advertisement suggests: ‘If you believe in it then everything is possible. The only limit is the one you set yourself.’ (Red Bull)

‘Every year, around the world, between 250,000 and 500,000 people suffer a spinal cord injury (SCI). The majority of spinal cord injuries are due to preventable causes such as road traffic crashes, falls or violence.’ (WHO) There is a lot more that needs to be done to find a solution for millions of people around the world who dream of walking on their feet again. And it is admirable what Red Bull is doing, the Wings For Life World Run brings attention and awareness to a good cause. But does a good deed compensate for a bigger more complex wrongdoing? Is it morally acceptable to spend money on charity whilst all your wealth is coming from a polluted source? And how big is Red Bull’s contribution to this cause? Red Bull has earned approximately 6 billion Euros in 2019 of which one third was directly spent on marketing and advertisements. While all the donations to the SCI research in 16 years of its conduct are as small as 32 million Euros. blood pressure cases they are responsible for. What matters is how much money they can donate to find a solution for SCI. This conflict is a clash of interest. How can we decide whether this is an evil company that profits out of diabetes and blood pressure, or a good charitable humane company that invests in sports and medicine? At the end of the day, what matters to Red Bull CEO’s is the image they create and how that affects the sale of next year.

How to sell more than 7.5 billion cans a year?

The more evil a company is, the more charitable it gets. The more harm a company does to public health, the more they would show off with their claims to help the health worldwide. And all of that comes from the inner conflict they try to face. Roland Barthes in his lecture series on the Neutral mentions that for 19th and 20th century thinkers such as Marx, Darwin, and Freud, the conflict was seen as a value, something to be made use of: ‘conflict is not an evil, it’s a motor, a functioning.’ The friction that exists between the opposing beliefs and facts that seem to be true and exist together simultaneously might release some hidden energy. And the inner conflict of the two opposite sides within Red Bull – being a dangerous unhealthy energy drink and also the picture of a sportive company – is what makes them do what they do.

This is a situation in which there are opposing demands and needs and that makes it almost impossible to make a choice between them. Red Bull doesn’t need to necessarily think about all the diabetes or

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/25/sports/autoracing/25iht-srf1prix25.html

[3] There seems to be no evidence that it was used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, though it is often attributed to him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBRNQMolTPw Barthes, Roland. The Neutral. Lecture Course at the College de France (1977-1978). Trans. Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier. columbia university press, new york, 2005. p128.

[6] Red Bull commercials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjuqPmrsne0 https://www.redbull.com/int-en/wings-for-life-world-run-report-photos https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/spinal-cord-injury