Field Marketing At Its Best

Field, or grassroots marketing has been around for quite some time. While some companies gave it up years ago due to the expense and lack of a definitive ROI, a small few are simply dominating their respective verticals. When you think about companies that own the gorilla marketing space a few key players come to mind. The one that comes top of my mind is Red Bull.

Red Bull essentially made its mark on the world through quirky events, and associating the brand with extreme sports. While they’ve recently broken out into the mainstream sports and music arenas they always dominated the extreme sports scene. Aligning a brand with a certain segment to build affinity is somewhat genius, but it’s even more effective when an aggressive grassroots marketing component is thrown in.

Enter, Red Bull Field Marketing person. While Emily and I were surfing in Daytona a few weeks back with some friends, we were paid a visit. After a day of surfing and playing on the beach we staggered back to our blankets, board bags and coolers to find a surprise left by some ingenious marketing person. “Why are they ingenious?” you ask. Well, any good marketer knows their core audience, and the idea of leaving Red Bull for some surfers just fits all too well for the brand. It was discreet, tactful, tasteful and targeted. Not to mention we were totally OK with it.

As we drank the saltwater away, we smiled, chatted about Red Bull, and shot off photos of our presents to the Twittersphere and The FaceTube. Now, had I seen a billboard, advertisement or flyer with the big red bull on it; I wouldn’t have given it one thought But, some drinks left on a very appreciative surfers spread goes a long way. Just think… I’m here writing about it now, so it must have worked.