Strange Red Bull bid at Wetherspoon
November 2009
A strange plan was enacted by Red Bull to get its energy drinks back on sale in their company says PUB chain boss Tim Martin
The bizarre attempt to get a decision to stop stocking their drink in their 783 pubs reversed amused the Exeter chairman of JD Wetherspoon though said he was initially angry
The firm had switched to Monster, a rival energy drink. A leaked email disclosed a scheme by Red Bull to send students on a secret mission to smuggle cans of the drink into Wetherspoon pubs and complain to managers about it not being available.
Mr Martin told the Echo about the clandestine marketing campaign: “I was cross with Red Bull when they denied the email was from them, but they have now admitted it so I’m not so cross.
He thought it was somewhat a deception to pretend they were bona fide customers complaining when it was actually Red Bull staff
“Clearly breaking up is hard to do.” He said
The climax was when it was brought to the chairman’s attention that a Red Bull branded Mini had appeared in the car park at the Imperial in New North Road on Friday.
A Red Bull spokesman said: “Given the importance of the JD Wetherspoon account to Red Bull, we had challenged our business to come up with some innovative ideas to try to win the business back but this drive was taken too far by over-enthusiastic junior employees
Mr Martin explained the decision to switch from Red Bull to Monster. He said: “We knew Monster was the number one energy drink in America and we had been finding Red Bull one of our more awkward suppliers. The feedback from customers has been very good and Monster has out-sold Red Bull.
Mr Martin said Wetherspoon’s four pubs in Exeter — The Imperial; George’s Meeting House in South Street; The Chevalier Inn in Fore Street and The Sawyer’s Arms in Cowick Street were doing well
He went on to say that they were performing very well in Exeter, and had just opened two more pubs there
Mr Martin said that Wetherspoon plans to open 40 new pubs this year and Teignmouth was one of the towns in Devon they were considering
Michelle Williams from Artemis Solutions Group who specialise in recruiting for the Food and Beverages Sector comments “Wetherspoon’s performance and their success are phenomenal. They have generated a lot of goodwill as can be seen with their suppliers not wanting to take no for an answer.”
