Red Bull Racing Tie Up With Big Bazaar For The Indian Grand Prix

I read this piece of news during my usual Formula1 research and readings and was surprised to see that this announcement wasn’t as publicly spoken about or discussed as the others. Infact, this association was announced when Red Bull racer Daniel Ricciardo was present in Delhi last week at the Red Bull Speed Street in Delhi where he drove the Red Bull Racing car at Rajpath. There are plenty of one-off grand prix deals being struck for the inaugural Indian Grand Prix and they have been making waves in the sports marketing and sponsorship industry in India. However, this Red Bull Racing – Big Bazaar announcement has missed the media scanner completely it seems.

Amul and Sauber announced their tie-up for the Indian Grand Prix and so did Hero and Hispania Racing alongwith Narain Karthikeyan. This Red Bull Racing – Big Bazaar tie-up appears to be a barter association with Red Bull Racing using Big Bazaar’s mass base and reach to promote their racing team. The World Champion team will be hosting events and activities at the various Big Bazaar outlets in the country and will carry the Big Bazaar logo on the RB7 racing cars.

Big Bazaar is the retail arm of the Future Bazaar group with 210 stores in 80 cities across India. With Diwali and the Indian GP dates falling in the same week, Big Bazaar stores across the country will witness great traction as consumers will throng their stores for the annual festive offers and this time they might get to witness a Red Bull Racing F1 car and possibly even get a glimpse of their current drivers Vettel or Webber. Quite an inexpensive route to reach out to the mass Indian audience!

Red Bull is not new to such a deal. They had tied up with 7-Eleven, yet another retail chain, for the 2011 Singapore Grand Prix.

Kunal Shah is an FIA-accredited Formula 1 journalist who has been reporting on Formula 1 for nearly two decades. He worked with the Force India Formula 1 Team for 6 seasons in Marketing, Sponsorship and Commercial roles. As a former single-seater racer, he was responsible for Force India's grassroots talent program, One from a Billion Hunt. Presently, he co-writes a regular Formula 1 column for Firstpost, speaks on Inside Line F1 Podcast & Pits to Podium and produces broadcast/OTT content for NENT Group (Viasport & Viaplay).

10 comments On Red Bull Racing Tie Up With Big Bazaar For The Indian Grand Prix

  • They had there barnding when Richardo wa doing the demo run in Delhi. I was really surprised and thought it must be only for that event.

  • I can’t believe kinky kylie will have ‘Is se sasta aur acha kahin nahin’ 😛

  • Kunal,
    Is it just me or you too feel that not much has been heard about Force India doing any deals or such for the Indian GP?

  • Again I’m too late for this post!!
    Do not blame me, i only found your blog 2 days back 😉
    “Red Bull & Big Bazaar” – It is like associating apples & oranges. Looking at the car pic or photograph of race drivers, I don’t think people flocked their way to race in 2011 or 2012. I kinda feel that it is a marketing goof-up. Do you have any statistics to prove that this association between ‘mutually exclusive'(here i mean ‘incompatible’) brands pulled off results. I kinda doubt it.
    Also when 2 brands come together, they kinda expect a win-win situation for both. Although theoretically the blog states the association from the Red Bull perspective to be profitable.
    I would like to know what would Big Bazaar get from this association?? Is it like stacking up Red Bull beverages in Big Bazaar outlets in subsidized cost(pun intended). My question may be naive but please shed some light from marketing perspective!
    PS: Marketing has always intrigued me!

    • Marketing is fun I’d say! Do it for a living! No data or stats available outside of this association, but logic would say that it achieved greater visibility for Red Bull Racing. But maybe that visibility was not amongst the crowds that they’d want. As for BB, it’s the association with an F1 team that they’re hoping helped shaped their perception (of being youth, cool, trendy, new-age) to their consumers.
      And this association was on a team level, don’t think the objective was to fill the seats at the BIC. Was purely visibility & brand related. Hope this helps!
      And thank you for finding my blog!

  • Kunal, it did help. Thx a bunch!
    But(here I’m at it again), If you say Future group’s Pantaloons hoping to shape the perception of customer as(youth,cool,trendy,up-to-date) makes perfect sense, i won’t even argue. They are a trendy brand.
    But what is Big Bazaar has to offer in the youthful category?
    Can Walmart or Kruger say “I’m cool”?? Hell no, they cannot. Because they are cheap , affordable & a necessity and are never cool.
    An example would be, I have shopped in walmart but they do not have the best of the best cloth section & most of the time it sucks, and so is Big Bazaar, cannot pick up a trendy cool top/t-shirt there either. That is because the brand concentrates on “necessities” rather than “swankiness”. So basically they may be cheap but they are not cool.
    On the other hand F1 is super cool & they should associate themselves with a cooler brand and not a I-Will-Fit-Everybody brand.
    Did it ever strike you that it might be a overlooked association because of a poor market research – not even a tad??? or am i missing something?? Shed some light, please!

    • Yes, true on the market research, there may not have been any. BB sells itself on the ‘cheapness’ of their products and their exact reason for this association was to portray ‘cool, trendy, etc.’ – just what you said. However, it could be the mass distribution of Red Bull energy drinks via BB outlets that could’ve also been an offshoot of this association. I am not too sure of this though.
      Given that F1 was in its first year in 2011, the immediate association of the sport and cars is about the ‘cool’ etc. bits. Hence, BB tried to use that exact perception. Aside from this, if you notice, their print campaigns are always about being ‘affordable but cool’ taglines and they have pretty looking models (male and female) to further back this perception. ‘Sasta hai par acha hain’ works perfect if they are able to prove that they are cool at a cheaper rates! Hope I didn’t take you on the merry-go-round.

  • Thx for the explanation, Kunal!
    Whatever the association is, hope it works for F1 empire, although people don’t flock to the sport, at least hope they take their baby step towards the sport sooner or later.

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Kunal