In Response to Chris's Post Much snow this winter?

This really has been a crazy winter in terms of the amount of snow we have gotten. I can imagine how hard this season must have been for companies that rely on winter. If I were a company, like the hardware store owner, I feel like I would have to stock up before or else you could run out stock and possibly lose customers. It would be more afraid of losing my steady customers than losing money for being over prepared. Also I can’t imagine how much money the ski resorts lost this year with there not being much snow. I know they must have huge overhead cost that they usually make back but I'm not sure about this year. There were only a few weeks that had good conditions this year. Also a company I intern for paid for snow removal up front to get a better deal but it turns out that they are getting a much worse deal because they have only needed snow removal twice all year. Environmental conditions will always be factor when planning ahead you just have to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Does anyone know how bad the ski resorts were hurt this year? Does anyone else have similar stories about over preparing?

Red Bull Founder Dies but Leaves a Great Legacy

The founder of Red Bull, Chaleo Yoovidhya, recently died at the age 90, but has a very interesting story about great marketing caused him to rise to be 205th richest man in the world with an estimated $5 billion. It is well know that red bull dominates the energy drink industry with a much larger market share than anyone else that is around 40%. It all started when an Austrian entrepreneur named Dietrich Mateschitz was sitting in a bar in Hong Kong and learned about a popular tonic that was used by night workers and such to get energy. It was created by Chaleo Yoovidhya's small pharmaceutical company and was called Krating Daeng. Materschitz thought it was such a great idea that him and Chaleo Yoovidhya started the company Red Bull with plans to bring it to the western market. The company used marketing tactics like publicity stunts and contest that have been made popular by the company in recent years. They became very popular with extreme sports and the counter culture. Also red bull cost twice as much per can as a normal soft drink but not because it cost more to make but because they wanted to stand out and becuase their product did things that others did not. The company one a formula one team, a Nascar team, a hockey team and a few soccer teams. The company did such a good job branding that they brought a product that was struggling in Thailand and created one of the most popular drinks in the world just by re-branding it. Does anyone else think this is amazing how your style of marketing can have such a huge impact? Can anyone think of any other examples of this?