turning up at the waterhole uninvited, they’ve wanted to be just one thing: cool.
So how do you make a drink ‘cool’? One highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is not inherently cooler than another highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water, it’s no cooler than lemonade or cola or even freshly squeezed orange juice, or, heaven forbid, plain old tap water, but if you market it just right, you can make it the very height of cool. So what does that entail? You plaster its name on the kinds of sport young men aspire to be involved with that feature ‘xtreme’ speed and danger: snowboarding and surfing and motorcross and mountain biking and aeroplane racing and skydiving from the edge of space, and the grand-daddy of them all: Formula One. The pinnacle of motorsport, the most watched televised sporting event on the planet after the football World Cup and the Olympics.
Now Dieter’s highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is named Iron Rhino and the company spends three hundred million dollars a year on Formula One. Three hundred million. A year. But still, they’re always searching for that next marketing opportunity, that special something that will make it even cooler to drink their highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water instead of the competition (which is named Red Bull and outsells Iron Rhino three to one).
Dieter, who founded and runs Iron Rhino, and who Marcellus has known since they served on the board of a rare disease charity back in 2001, has recently branched out beyond the company’s usual extreme-sport marketing habitat into other areas, such as DJ battles and a music label, so what Marcellus has in mind just may work for him.
The phone rings and rings, then is picked up. ‘Dieter?’
‘Marcellus, my good man.’ The delight in his voice is obvious. ‘How are you?’ They both speak German.
‘Fine, fine. And you? The family, everybody well?’
‘No complaints.’
‘I should damn well hope not.’ They share a knowing laugh. Dieter’s fortune is estimated at over one billion dollars and he is well known to be generous with family and friends.
‘And how’s that racing team of yours coming along?’
‘Slowly, which is not a word you want to hear in F1.’ The sixty-four-year-old German sounds pained saying it. After seven years in Formula One, Dieter’s Iron Rhino team has not yet won a race and is being handed its arse by Red Bull, which is not only its fierce competitor in the energy drink market but also on the track. Red Bull has won the F1 championship for the last four years running.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Me too. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’
‘I’ve had an idea you may find interesting. Do you have a minute?’
‘For you I have two.’
~ * ~
Six minutes later Marcellus hangs up the phone and grins. That went exactly as hoped. Now all he has to do is make sure Billy Hotchkiss isn’t a crazy person and Marcellus can set this investigation in motion. He glances at the computer screen, finds the Australian’s mobile number and dials the phone.
~ * ~
McDonald’s.
Yep, whenever Billy’s feeling down in the dumps good old Micky D’s comes to the rescue. It’s always there, just over the hill or around the bend, the gleaming golden arches promising to soothe whatever ails him, in this case the shame of screwing up his second career.
Unfortunately it’s too late for hotcakes, the breakfast menu is no longer being served, but he hoes into his second Double Choc Fudge McFlurry, which is almost as good, and wonders if it would be too much if he went back for a third. Why the hell not? Though he should probably visit a different cashier to avoid any embarrassment.
Bzzz. His iPhone rattles on the table next to the first McFlurry container. It’s an overseas number. He picks up, expecting yet another robo-call telling him he’s won the chance to win a Caribbean vacation or a
So how do you make a drink ‘cool’? One highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is not inherently cooler than another highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water, it’s no cooler than lemonade or cola or even freshly squeezed orange juice, or, heaven forbid, plain old tap water, but if you market it just right, you can make it the very height of cool. So what does that entail? You plaster its name on the kinds of sport young men aspire to be involved with that feature ‘xtreme’ speed and danger: snowboarding and surfing and motorcross and mountain biking and aeroplane racing and skydiving from the edge of space, and the grand-daddy of them all: Formula One. The pinnacle of motorsport, the most watched televised sporting event on the planet after the football World Cup and the Olympics.
Now Dieter’s highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water is named Iron Rhino and the company spends three hundred million dollars a year on Formula One. Three hundred million. A year. But still, they’re always searching for that next marketing opportunity, that special something that will make it even cooler to drink their highly caffeinated fizzy sugar water instead of the competition (which is named Red Bull and outsells Iron Rhino three to one).
Dieter, who founded and runs Iron Rhino, and who Marcellus has known since they served on the board of a rare disease charity back in 2001, has recently branched out beyond the company’s usual extreme-sport marketing habitat into other areas, such as DJ battles and a music label, so what Marcellus has in mind just may work for him.
The phone rings and rings, then is picked up. ‘Dieter?’
‘Marcellus, my good man.’ The delight in his voice is obvious. ‘How are you?’ They both speak German.
‘Fine, fine. And you? The family, everybody well?’
‘No complaints.’
‘I should damn well hope not.’ They share a knowing laugh. Dieter’s fortune is estimated at over one billion dollars and he is well known to be generous with family and friends.
‘And how’s that racing team of yours coming along?’
‘Slowly, which is not a word you want to hear in F1.’ The sixty-four-year-old German sounds pained saying it. After seven years in Formula One, Dieter’s Iron Rhino team has not yet won a race and is being handed its arse by Red Bull, which is not only its fierce competitor in the energy drink market but also on the track. Red Bull has won the F1 championship for the last four years running.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Me too. So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?’
‘I’ve had an idea you may find interesting. Do you have a minute?’
‘For you I have two.’
~ * ~
Six minutes later Marcellus hangs up the phone and grins. That went exactly as hoped. Now all he has to do is make sure Billy Hotchkiss isn’t a crazy person and Marcellus can set this investigation in motion. He glances at the computer screen, finds the Australian’s mobile number and dials the phone.
~ * ~
McDonald’s.
Yep, whenever Billy’s feeling down in the dumps good old Micky D’s comes to the rescue. It’s always there, just over the hill or around the bend, the gleaming golden arches promising to soothe whatever ails him, in this case the shame of screwing up his second career.
Unfortunately it’s too late for hotcakes, the breakfast menu is no longer being served, but he hoes into his second Double Choc Fudge McFlurry, which is almost as good, and wonders if it would be too much if he went back for a third. Why the hell not? Though he should probably visit a different cashier to avoid any embarrassment.
Bzzz. His iPhone rattles on the table next to the first McFlurry container. It’s an overseas number. He picks up, expecting yet another robo-call telling him he’s won the chance to win a Caribbean vacation or a
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