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By Georgina Prodhan
VIENNA, March 15 (Reuters) - Red Bull's unusual decision togo public on a blackmailer's threat to contaminate its energydrinks with faeces could cost the brand far less long-term thanany immediate hit to sales.
Known for investing heavily in marketing its drinks andsports events, the privately owned Austrian company revealslittle about itself. So its announcement on Thursday of acriminal threat to taint its drinks came as a particularsurprise.
Companies hit by product tampering generally hope suchthreats blow over, marketing experts said.
"It's a bold brand and a bold move," said Gordon Pincott,chairman of global solutions at the Millward Brown brandsspecialist agency. "The good thing about what they've done withthis announcement is it doesn't let the rumour mill get going."
Red Bull made the announcement in order to remove the"blackmailer's greatest lever" of disclosing it in the media,said the company. Red Bull sold 5.2 billion cans of drink lastyear and is ranked the third biggest soft drink brand in theworld after Coca-Cola and Pepsi.
The extortionist had threatened to taint beverage cans withfaecal matter if not paid off, Red Bull said. But nothing hadbeen found at checks in stores where the blackmailer said drinkshad been contaminated.
"People now know to pay close attention to their can," saidJordi Connor, head of planning at WPP's Dialogue brandmarketing agency. "While it may cost Red Bull some sales in theshort term, the announcement will have strengthened the bond oftrust between them and their drinkers."
Investigations were focused on a specific supermarket inVienna, Austrian prosecutors said. The Kurier newspaper printedwhat it called a ransom email signed by "gruponymos". It blankedout the supermarket address.
A Red Bull spokesman declined to elaborate on the company'sshort statement, in which it also said that it and the policebelieved they were close to finding the perpetrators.
In a possible indication of limited damage for Red Bull'simage, tweets about Red Bull on Friday appeared to be dominatedby news of its Formula 1 racing team preparing for theAustralian Grand Prix rather than the blackmail attempt.
IMAGE CONTROL
The Red Bull brand, valued by Millward Brown at $10 billion,has been built not only through its drinks, but also throughsports - ranging from sponsorship of Felix Baumgartner'srecord-breaking space dive to Formula One racing and ice hockey.
Its executives rarely give interviews and it controls itsimage tightly.
Even the most open companies almost never come forward totalk about any product tampering, said Gene Grabowski, an expertin food and consumer PR and vice president of U.S.-basedcommunications firm Levick, which has worked on almost 200product recalls.
"In this case it looks like it might be effective," he said."If there is any contamination or there is any problem with thedrink, Red Bull has already established who the villain herewould be."
This paid off for Pepsi in 1993 when the company wonsympathy after a spate of reports of needles and other objectsfound in Pepsi cans turned out to be hoaxes, he said.
While companies might prefer to keep quiet about producttampering, not saying anything can be damaging too.
The failure of baby food maker Gerber to withdraw productsquickly in the United States after some were contaminated withglass in 1986 and its decision to remain tight-lipped about theaffair is still used by some public relations advisors as anexample of how not to handle such cases.
The most notorious case of product contamination was the1982 Chicago Tylenol murders, in which seven people died aftertaking Johnson & Johnson medicine contaminated withcyanide. That case remains unsolved.
