CHRISTOPHER STEVENS: Dietrich Mateschitz was Red Bull marketing genius

The billionaire who hooked the world on energy drinks: Dietrich Mateschitz aimed to market Red Bull almost as a magic potion and gave him a £22billion fortune – but he found it banned in schools and outlawed in several countries, writes CHRISTOPHER STEVENS

• Death of Red Bull tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz, aged 78, announced at weekend
• Krating Daeng, Thai for Red Bull, was herbal drink invented by Chaleo Yoovidhya
• Mateschitz made £22 billion from company and was the world’s 51st richest man 
• Billionaire said in 2016 ‘money was never driving force for me,’ but that ‘joy’ was 
• But his powerful drink has attracted controversy for taurine and caffeine content

Red Bull gives you wings, promises the energy drink slogan. For marketing genius Dietrich Mateschitz, that was just the start of it.

It gave him wings, in the shape of a Falcon 900 private jet and a pilot’s licence, to take him to Laucala, his private island in Fiji. 

It also gave him an estimated £22 billion fortune, making him the 51st wealthiest man in the world, according to the Forbes rich list.

And it gave him a Formula 1 team, whose drivers have included world champions Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.

Red Bull gives you wings, promises the energy drink slogan. For marketing genius Dietrich Mateschitz, that was just the start of it

Not bad for a toothpaste salesman from Austria, who stumbled on his formula for unlimited riches when he tried a cure for jet lag in south-east Asia.

But the powerful stimulant, popular with club-goers and binge-drinkers as a mixer for vodka, has attracted waves of controversy, from campaigners who warn it encourages alcohol abuse to teachers who dread its hyperactive effect on children.

Mateschitz, whose death at the age of 78 was announced at the weekend after a long battle with cancer, had no doubts about its benefits. 

He once said he drank ten to 12 cans a day — thus consuming the same amount of caffeine as contained in two dozen cups of instant coffee.

His lucky break came in 1982, when the then marketing director for the German toothpaste brand Blendax landed in Thailand aching all over and with a throbbing head from the flight. In search of something to clear his brain, he tried a swig of Krating Daeng.

Krating Daeng, which is Thai for Red Bull, was a herbal concoction popular with long-distance lorry drivers, invented by duck farmer turned pharmaceutical entrepreneur Chaleo Yoovidhya. 

It took its name from one of the ingredients, an amino acid called taurine — which, according to rumour, was extracted from bull’s semen.

That turned out to be just so much bull. But there was no question about the drink’s power as a pick-me-up — it acted as a supercharger on the human metabolism. It also contained ginseng, B vitamins and glucose. 

The combined effect was a buzzing energy jolt that, when consumed to excess, could also cause anxiety, insomnia and frantic energy bursts.

Mateschitz, whose death at the age of 78 was announced at the weekend after a long battle with cancer, had no doubts about Red Bull’s benefits

In partnership with Yoovidhya (who died ten years ago aged 88), Mateschitz — pronounced ‘Matter-sheets’ — invested £500,000 in setting up a company to bring his discovery to European and American consumers. 

At its launch in 1987, asked who would buy the product, he retorted: ‘There exists no market for Red Bull. But we will create one.’

He achieved this with astonishing success. Within 20 years, Red Bull was selling more than 3.5 billion cans and bottles annually worldwide, in nearly 150 countries.

And sales kept booming, despite health warnings in countries such as Canada, where cans appeared with the following line: ‘Not recommended for children, pregnant or breast-feeding women, caffeine-sensitive persons or to be mixed with alcohol.’ 

France, the U.S., Ireland, Turkey and Sweden also voiced medical concerns, while Norway, Denmark, Uruguay and Iceland went so far as to ban the product.

Yet by last year, sales had increased to almost 10 billion worldwide, an increase of 24 per cent on the previous year, with revenues hitting £6.8 billion.

News of Mateschitz’s death broke on Saturday as Red Bull prepared for yesterday’s U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, where the team aimed to collect enough points to cement their claim to this year’s champion constructor’s title. Their driver, Verstappen, has already won the 2022 world championship.

Paying tribute, the team’s boss Christian Horner said: ‘It’s very, very sad. What a great man. What he achieved and what he’s done for so many people around the world across different sports is second to none.’

Mateschitz aimed to market Red Bull almost as a magic potion, a drink that created superheroes. 

The company began by sponsoring an extreme sports contest called Dolomitenmann, a relay race that involved running, cycling, kayaking and paragliding. Its slogan is ‘When suffering is fun’.

Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner and Dietrich Mateschitz. Red Bull gave Mateschitz a Formula 1 team, whose drivers have included world champions Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel

Held in Austria’s East Tyrolean mountains, the race is open only to men (though there has been a separate competition for women since 2017).

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner was also hired for daredevil displays, including a parachute ‘base jump’ from the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and a flight across the English Channel with a carbon wing.

In 2012, a stunt dubbed Red Bull Stratos sent Baumgartner into space to make a jump from 24 miles up, from a capsule suspended under a helium balloon. During the freefall, in a pressure suit, he became the first person to break the sound barrier without using an engine.

‘Didi’ Mateschitz began buying football teams and rebadging them with the Red Bull name, including Salzburg, the team closest to his hometown, Fuschl am See.

He snapped up a fifth division minnow in Germany, Markranstadt, and renamed it RB Leipzig. The team now plays in the top-flight Bundesliga: tomorrow they have a champion’s league match against Real Madrid.

In the mid-1990s, he started sponsoring F1 with the Sauber racing team. But he severed links in 2001 when Sauber insisted on signing the Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen, who was then little known. It was a rare misstep: Raikkonen went on to win the World Championship six years later.

Mateschitz bought the faltering Jaguar F1 team and by 2010 had won both the drivers’ and the constructors’ championships — the first of four consecutive double wins.

But all this publicity sometimes inspired a craze for reckless misuse of energy drinks. Mateschitz’s relentless emphasis on sporting success and record-breaking achievements was overshadowed by pleas from schools to restrict sales to children.

Chatsmore Catholic High School in Worthing, Sussex, banned it after a spate of problems. ‘We don’t want it escalating,’ warned acting head Anne Ward in 2008. 

‘Students are drinking more caffeine, which is making them hyperactive in lessons because they haven’t had time to run off all that energy.’

More worrying was the trend for mixing Red Bull with spirits, especially vodka. 

A study by Devon and Cornwall showed typical consumption by young women on a night out was eight vodka and Red Bulls. 

Popular cocktails included the Annihilator (vodka, Red Bull, triple sec liqueur and lime juice), and the Bar Slut (vodka, Red Bull, 7-Up and cranberry juice).

The caffeine enabled binge-drinkers to keep going, acting as a stimulant to override the sleepiness brought on by alcohol — but not the drunkenness. 

One American doctor compared it to stamping on the accelerator and the brake in a car simultaneously.

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner was hired for daredevil displays, including a parachute ‘base jump’ from the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and a flight across the English Channel with a carbon wing

Red Bull ads did not promote this aspect of the product. But a Daily Mail investigation revealed more subtle methods of promotion, including free cans handed out to students on university campuses — and free cases given away for parties.

‘You don’t have to pay a thing,’ one marketeer assured our reporter, Tom Rawsthorne. ‘All we ask in return is some photos of the party atmosphere with some Red Bull cans around.’

Such cynical generosity by Mateschitz’s brand was offset by real generosity in private. In 2004, he set up the Wings For Life Foundation, giving millions for research to find a cure for spinal cord injuries.

Unmarried, he lived with long-term partner Marion Feichtner and had a son, Mark, born in 1994 from a previous relationship.

Mateschitz himself was born in the rural Austrian district of Styria in May 1944, to parents who were school teachers. 

After graduating from Vienna University of Economics and Business with a degree in marketing, aged 28, he started working for cosmetics companies.

He rarely gave interviews, perhaps because he refused to be fettered by political correctness. 

In 2016 he threatened to close his Austrian TV station, Servus, when staff attempted to form a union. 

The following year, he caused controversy by criticising the German government over the refugee crisis, accusing politicians of hypocrisy.

‘Money was never a driving force for me,’ he said. ‘It always came last on the list of motivating things. For me, the driving force has always been freedom and independence and joy in my projects.

‘Joy is the basic requirement for everything you do.’

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