The legacy of the Trojan Horse

Welcome to Legacy Beyond Profits, where we explore what it really means to build a business that leaves a mark for the right reasons.

Most executives treat content marketing as promotional expense: create videos to sell products, sponsor events to gain impressions, build social media presence to drive traffic. This transactional mindset produces forgettable campaigns that interrupt audiences rather than attract them—consumers skip ads, ignore sponsorships, and scroll past branded content on their way to entertainment they actually want.

Building legacy through content inversion requires counterintuitive courage—spending billions to become the entertainment itself while funding operations through a commodity product most consumers can't distinguish in blind taste tests. Dietrich Mateschitz endured years of skepticism for buying Formula 1 teams and funding space jumps with energy drink profits, proving that whoever creates the culture owns the category permanently, regardless of product specifications.

From promotional expense to cultural ownership

1. Become the entertainment, don't interrupt it

The unconventional move: instead of buying advertising that interrupts content people want, become the content people seek. Red Bull doesn't purchase thirty-second spots during extreme sports broadcasts—they own the broadcasts, the events, the athletes, and the distribution channels. When audiences watch Red Bull content, they're not enduring marketing to reach entertainment; the marketing is the entertainment. This inversion transforms advertising from cost center into audience-building asset that compounds over decades.

2. Own the culture before competitors recognize the category

Strategic content investment targets emerging subcultures years before mainstream recognition. Extreme sports sponsorships began in the 1990s when skateboarding and snowboarding were considered fringe activities—long before the Olympics included them. By the time these sports went mainstream, Red Bull already owned the athletes, events, and audience relationships that newer sponsors couldn't replicate regardless of budget. First-mover advantage in cultural ownership creates permanent positioning that money alone cannot purchase.

3. Fund the empire through commodity margins, not content monetization

Red Bull inverted the typical media model: the content empire doesn't need to be profitable because it's funded by beverage margins that dwarf typical content economics. Production cost per can is approximately $0.09, wholesale price is $1.87, retail reaches $3.59—generating margins that fund $3 billion in annual content spending.

4. Transform brand association into category definition

When content investment reaches sufficient scale, the brand becomes synonymous with the culture itself. Red Bull doesn't sponsor extreme sports—in many disciplines, Red Bull is extreme sports. They created events like Flugtag, Air Race, Rampage, and Crashed Ice that wouldn't exist without them. This category definition creates competitive moats that product innovation cannot breach: competitors can match the drink's formula, but cannot replicate decades of cultural infrastructure.

How Dietrich Mateschitz built a media empire that happens to sell energy drinks

In 1982, Dietrich Mateschitz was a 38-year-old marketing director for a German toothpaste company, grinding through business trips that had lost all meaning. "All I could see were the same gray airplanes, the same gray suits, the same gray faces," he later recalled. During a trip to Thailand, jet-lagged and exhausted, he discovered a local tonic called Krating Daeng that Thai truck drivers used to stay alert. One glass and the fog lifted. Mateschitz saw something nobody else recognized: not just a product, but a vehicle for building something far larger.

In 1984, Mateschitz approached Krating Daeng's creator, Chaleo Yoovidhya, with an audacious proposal. Each man invested $500,000—their entire savings—to create Red Bull GmbH. Mateschitz spent three years reformulating the drink for Western palates while market research firms delivered devastating verdicts: the name was wrong, the taste was wrong, the packaging was wrong. Focus groups hated everything about it.

Mateschitz ignored them all. On April 1, 1987, Red Bull launched in Austria—and initially, nobody bought it. The product faced bans in Germany, France, and other European countries over ingredient concerns. Most entrepreneurs would have panicked. Mateschitz welcomed the controversy: "Each ban generated millions in free advertising through word of mouth." The drink became an outlaw brand, precisely the positioning he wanted.

While beverage competitors spent marketing budgets on traditional advertising, Mateschitz began buying the culture itself. Athlete sponsorships started in 1989, targeting extreme sports that mainstream brands ignored—skateboarding, snowboarding, cliff diving, motorsports. Rather than sponsor existing events, Mateschitz created new ones: Flugtag, Air Race, Crashed Ice, Rampage. By the time these sports went mainstream, he already owned the athletes, events, and audience relationships that newer sponsors couldn't replicate.

In 2005, the Jaguar Racing Formula 1 team came up for sale. Mateschitz bought it. Why would an energy drink company own a racing team? He wasn't buying advertising impressions—he was buying cultural infrastructure. The team has since won multiple World Championships, with Max Verstappen becoming a global celebrity synonymous with the brand.

The 2012 Stratos project crystallized this content supremacy. $50 million sent Felix Baumgartner to the edge of space, with his 24-mile freefall broadcast live to the world. 8 million people watched simultaneously on YouTube—16 times the platform's previous record. The footage has accumulated nearly 1 billion views. Estimated media value: $6 billion from a single event. Baumgartner broke the sound barrier; the company broke every assumption about what a beverage brand could achieve.

Founded in 2007, Red Bull Media House formalized this strategy into standalone operations—producing documentaries, operating Red Bull TV, publishing The Red Bulletin magazine, and licensing content to broadcasters worldwide. Marketing expense transformed into profit center.

The financial results validate the counterintuitive approach. 12.67 billion cans sold in 2024, generating €11.2 billion in revenue—commanding 43% of the global energy drink market despite premium pricing. Annual content and sponsorship spending reaches €3 billion (25-30% of revenue), compared to Coca-Cola's 9%. But this isn't marketing expense—it's infrastructure investment in cultural ownership.

When Dietrich Mateschitz died in October 2022, tributes poured in from athletes worldwide. Surfing legend Robby Naish captured what Red Bull had built: "Didi provided more opportunities to more athletes from more sports and backgrounds than anyone in history." The drink funded the empire; the empire became the legacy.

From strategy to legacy

Content inversion challenges the assumption that marketing exists to sell products. Red Bull's achievement: Mateschitz built a media empire that generates its own audience, revenue, and cultural authority—then funded it through commodity beverage margins that competitors couldn't match because they were still thinking like beverage companies.

This pattern extends beyond energy drinks. Michelin doesn't dominate restaurant ratings because they make better tires—they created a content platform that reinforces their brand while providing genuine value to audiences who may never buy their products. In markets where products eventually commoditize, permanent advantages belong to those who recognize that owning the culture outlasts owning the category.

Mateschitz's genius: understanding that an energy drink was merely the most efficient funding mechanism for building something that would matter long after the caffeine wore off. Red Bull doesn't dominate because their formula is superior. They dominate because three decades of cultural investment made the brand synonymous with human achievement itself.