SWOT ANALYSIS
Strengths
- Diverse product portfolio including energy drinks, coffee, tea, and juice.
- Strong brand and audience personas targeting entertainment segments including extreme sports, music, gaming, and live events.
- Strong brand tagline– “Unleash the Beast” which clearly communicates a call-to-action for the brand’s fans to be bold, daring, and extreme.
- Monster Energy has a demonstrated record of environmental support through numerous initiatives including recyclable packaging, emission reduction through solar energy, water conservation, landfill waste reduction, and more.
Weaknesses
- Trails behind Red Bull, clearly does not dominate market share in energy drinks market
- Monster Beverage Company fails to reach woman-identifying audiences which limits brand reach.
- The brand has a limited targeted audience that primarily focuses on activities that require extreme energy output such as music, gaming, and events; Monster Energy’s audience is not generally wide.
- Monster energy does not invest in traditional advertising which presents a unique challenge to reach the brand’s target audience unconventionally.
Opportunities
- Energy drink popularity continues to rise in the U.S. In 2023, the energy drink market hit $18.51 billion, up 67% from $11.05 billion in 2017. (Source)
- Monster Energy Company can continue to build strategic partnerships with audiences like their current partnership with Activision’s with Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 which includes exclusive rewards like gaming “skins” for consumers.
- As consumer preference shifts towards more healthier beverage options, Monster Energy can share a drink alternative that offers cleaner, more natural ingredients.
- Offer new, powder versions of Monster Energy to increase convenience
Threats
- Mark competitor Red Bull leads in the energy drink market with $7.34 billion in sales compared to Monster Energy’s $5.52 billion in sales in 2023. (Source)
- Current U.S. trends reflect a shift towards a greater priority on health which may discourage consumers from buying/drinking caffeinated products like Monster Energy.
- Competitor Red Bull offers a more diverse flavor portfolio which includes watermelon, tropical, blueberry, dragon fruit, peach-nectarine, coconut berry, strawberry apricot, juneberry, iced vanilla berry, and original.
- Some of these flavors are also available in sugar free and zero sugar varieties.
- In addition to Red Bull, competitors such as Celsius and Rockstar continue to gain momentum in the energy drink market which further saturates the market with energy drink options.