The Red Bull market test: "I'd never before experienced such a disaster"

First, Mateschitz changes the Thai tonic drink a little. He gives it bubbles, so it feels more like the cold drinks people in Europe know. He keeps the main parts of the recipe, like the caffeine.

Next, the drink needs a name and a can. Mateschitz picks the name from the Thai one: Krating Daeng, the red wild bull, becomes Red Bull. For the can, he asks an old friend from university, Johannes Kastner, who runs an ad agency in Frankfurt. Kastner draws about 50 designs.

The slogan is the hardest part, and Kastner is ready to give up. Then, at 3 in the morning, it comes to him: "Gives you wings." He calls Mateschitz at once and says it is the last idea he will give him. Mateschitz answers, "That's it."

Before he sells a single can, Mateschitz wants to know what people think. He pays a market research firm, a company that asks people for their opinion of a product before it goes on sale. Ordinary people try Red Bull and say what they think.

The result is terrible. "People didn't believe the taste, the logo, the brand name," Mateschitz said later. "I'd never before experienced such a disaster." In plain words: people liked neither the taste, nor the logo, nor the name.

Mateschitz ignores the report. To him, the test judges Red Bull as one more soft drink, next to cola and lemonade. He sees a new kind of drink, an energy drink, that people buy to keep going. "There is no existing market for Red Bull," he said. "But Red Bull will create it."

On 1 April 1987, he puts Red Bull on sale in Austria anyway. He has six salespeople, a secretary, and a drink that the people in the test did not like. So how do you get people to buy it?