Danny Herbert

The energy drink market these days is, ironically, more fruitful than ever. And when it comes to the market leaders there really are only two long-time stalwarts.

It also happens that each of them are staunch, high-profile brands within the pinnacle of motorsport, Formula 1. One has its own multiple championship-winning team and the other has been associated with several hugely successful teams and drivers during its sponsor tenure.

These are, of course, Red Bull and Monster Energy!

Nowadays when you think of Red Bull, not only do you think of the blue and silver cans in your local corner shop but you most likely will also think of its two F1 teams – Oracle Red Bull Racing and Visa Cash App RB.

The former has spent plenty a time as one of F1’s most dominant forces. It’s a team that’s won six Drivers’ Championships with Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, and seven Constructors’ Championships, taking on the likes of Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.

Red Bull is a huge force in motorsport, not just F1, and extreme sports worldwide with one of the most publicly norm-defying marketing strategies of any company, in any sector, globally.

Its arch nemesis in the energy drinks sector, Monster Energy, isn’t necessarily as visible or well-known in the same respects as its rival. However, it’s been arguably just as present, in F1 at least, throughout the last few seasons.

First, a 14-year partnership with Mercedes saw the Monster brand elevated to the same world stage where Red Bull had enjoyed almost exclusive visibility until then. The most prevalent product of this being the popular Lewis Hamilton branded Monster drink.

In 2023, however, Monster announced a shock move in the F1 world, as it forged an all-new alliance with McLaren, curating a partnership to take the brand’s prospective audience down a redefined route, no longer in Red Bull’s shadow.

McLaren is very much of a younger fandom in this current era of the team, with drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri the faces of this more vibrant era for the Woking-based outfit. Signing on the dotted line with Monster was a huge coup in the sponsorship world that has even bigger possibilities for energetic fan activations and social campaigns.

The question is, why did Monster take the plunge on a new team? After all, its Mercedes partnership was – albeit on a smaller scale – a known entity. A successful window into the growing fan portal that is F1.

But where the ideologies of Mercedes and McLaren differs is abundantly clear to see off-track. None more so than in the United States market!

Therefore, it’s absolutely not a coincidence that Monster chose McLaren. The US was the largest market globally in 2023 for Monster (with a reported revenue of $107.7M) and McLaren is the team with the most US-based sponsors on the entire grid.

It’s reported that McLaren’s popularity doubled from 2017 to 2021 after Zak Brown took the helm as CEO following the team’s nadir in the latter stages of the Ron Dennis era. 

A major goal for Monster with the switch to McLaren has to be to take a greater share of the energy drink market by plain and simply associating itself with a group of fans that are suggested to be more representative of the consumer it wants to attract. 

And with an ever-increasing global popularity in several key markets, McLaren is the perfect team to establish a presence alongside.

Signing a multi-year partnership for good measure certainly isn’t a ‘dipping your toes in and seeing what happens’ move. It was a major move in the global fight for dominance in the energy drink market – a market that sees ever a rogue sponsor or major YouTuber making their bid for youthful glory only to realise taking on the might of the established market leaders isn’t so easy.

Attempting a partnership with an F1 team was one thing Rich Energy did get right then!