Monster's Natural

1. SITUATION ANALYSIS
Sarah Serdienis
Shannon Strain
Trisha Eyer
Alana Hadley
Matt Bennett

Hansen’s Natural has been around to serve the public its natural sodas since the 1930’s. While natural sodas have always been very popular, Hansen’s has taken decision-making to the next level with the creation of Monster energy drink. One could even say that Hansen’s Natural has been saved by its release of Monster in 2004 as it went through company turbulence with sales years prior. Now as the new market of energy drinks is exploding, the company receives about 90% of its revenues from energy drink sales alone. Monster has brought Hansen to a skyrocketing level where product sales increased revenue 20% from 2009 to 2010; a successful time.
Monster Energy is one of many different kinds of energy drinks that are becoming popular in this newer industry. It has been able to sustain its reputation as one of the leading brands in sales, one of the most popular to drink, with an image that differentiates itself from the others. The top brands that Monster is currently competing with are Red Bull, Rockstar, and even 5 hour energy. Most of these brands, Red Bull especially, have been successful with their advertisements on TV with regular strategies of marketing (advertising with comedy, sensuality, using computer animation). Monster is also very successful in its marketing but the company has taken a very unique approach at getting its name out, without having to commercially advertise at all. Monster does not advertise on television. It is an energy-drink that supports the “cool” aspects of what it is trying to sell and they are known for sponsoring events for different outdoors sports and even extreme sports. Celebrity endorsements include famous athletes such as skaters, snowboarders, motocross, and surfers, which all explain Monster’s target audience. Monster reaches out to men and women ages 18-34 specifically, who they also consider to be their largest “fanbase”.
The company focuses on their athletic reputation because their fans are also in favor of the same sports that it sponsors. Monster has synergized the idea that energy drinks are a compliment to sports, which seems to be a very accurate summary. Monster is full of valuable benefits, mostly the benefits that it provides to its drinkers. They keep a very open and team-oriented stance with its consumers, making sure that Monster gear and clothing are available as a brand name to everyone (not just its employees) and even allowing opportunities for sponsorship for those who follow and qualify. Monsters continually visits events to share its tasty energy drink, and will almost always be seen on the back of a competing candidate in a sports race. Another great value it keeps up with is its fan sites. With websites to visit like Monsterarmy.com, fans, consumers, and future sponsors are able to keep up to date with upcoming events, win free things, enjoy music, watch videos of Monster-sponsored events, and even apply to be sponsored. Monster also has Facebook and Twitter accounts that are daily kept up. There are many different ways to reach Monster, which cannot be said for other energy drinks who aren’t reaching out to its target market as strongly. This brings us to our situational analysis, which explains the great things about Monster Energy, and also the things
that it could work on to make it an even more effective and exciting company. To start out explaining the SWOT analysis of Monster, we’ll start with the strengths.
Monster is not only a company but also a sales “brand name” in that it sells merchandise and popular amongst its target market. It is a very accessible company where all of its consumers and its fanbase may reach it through several different webpages. It’s sales have increased, equaling to Red Bull’s and surpassing it in certain trends. Another big strength of Monster’s is the fact that it is expanded amongst 58 different countries in such a short time of 7 years. Some Weaknesses of Monster’s might be its advertisements, where even though they have been successful without using television to get their name out, it might be an opportunity cost for them, missing out on certain consumers who haven’t been reached otherwise. Another weakness is the fact that it is not yet the leading brand, as Red Bull has been around much longer, and is still considered the top. Perhaps different opportunities can change this. The great opportunities that Monster does have, however, include expanding further world wide, opening into different markets other than extreme sports. Another suggestion we have would even be to find a competing Olympic sport that is “extreme” enough for Monster to sponsor as you cannot get any higher with sports competition than the Olympics. Starting to make ads on television might be a great opportunity for them, with the right endorsement and sales pitch. We also think that
hosting celebrity concerts (such as lady gaga) would be a grand opportunity. There are certain threats to the company that Monster needs to be aware of and that includes the demographic that Monster hasn’t gotten involved with. They don’t seem to take into consideration that not all people follow extreme sports. If not for seeing Monster energy drinks in the stores, and for those of us who are not into skating, motocross, or special events, we might have never known about it. We think Monster should either expand to different sports, or at least take into factor that there are still others out there that need to be reached in a different approach!