New national coach: Red Bull is lovewashing with Jürgen Klopp

AIt is absolutely admirable how quickly the parties came together within the alliance of convenience “Only Kloppo can save football Germany”. If the federal government were to work as quickly as the DFB and Red Bull have in recent weeks, then income tax and long-term care insurance would long ago be reformed and pensions would be secure.

When Jürgen Klopp is presented as the new national coach this Friday, just 25 days will have passed since the DFB team lost on penalties against Paraguay and, perhaps even more spectacularly: it was just 40 days ago that the presenter duo Klopp and Thomas Müller suspected (or knew?) before Nagelsmann’s first World Cup game that Klopp might be the one to lead the DFB team into the Nations League in the autumn (Müller: “Kloppo, it’s only June! You’re already in September!”).

But because good people are often employed, buying them out is usually a much bigger problem than finding them. What a lucky coincidence that the TV expert Klopp was able to whisper on the sidelines of the World Cup final about a magic formula that has now made it possible for him, Klopp, to be the Red Bulls Head of Global Soccer could be poached by the DFB in a flash. The formula, said Klopp, is: “very, very generous agreement”.

One million euros, that’s what they reported Bildwhich these days is closer to Klopp than his eternal assistant Peter Krawietz, the DFB is paying “Wings for Life” instead of a standard transfer fee; a Red Bull Foundation that promotes spinal cord research to cure paraplegia. One million euros is, of course, very little money for a fully grown person Head of Global Soccerwho is contractually bound to Red Bull until 2029. And secondly, it is logical that the beverage company with an annual turnover of twelve billion euros will no longer sell a single can, just because research money is now being made available to its own foundation and no one will ever find out about it…

Wait, wait, how clever! Is this the same marketing gimmick that’s been going on for the past 25 days?

Initially, the idea was circulating in the wider footballing circle that Red Bull would simply keep its global football head employed and that he would have given the national coach a part-time job. When resistance arose not only within the DFB, but also in the power centers of German football, it was considered whether Klopp Red Bull could remain as a brand ambassador. This idea was ultimately replaced by a model according to which Klopp “aside from the not always time-consuming life of national coach, his expertise can now and then be available to the group’s extensive sports world,” as the Kicker wrote in an inimitable way. And now, at the end of all the rumblings, the “very, very generous agreement”, a million against paraplegia!

The Krombacher brewery once demonstrated how to combine product sales with a good cause

Cause-Related Marketing is the name of the magic formula that not even the marketing professionals at Red Bull have invented: linking product sales to a good cause.

Does anyone remember the Krombacher brewery’s “rainforest project,” also known as “drinking for the rainforest”? With every box of Krombacher purchased, it was said at the time, one square meter of rainforest in the Dzanga Sangha area would be protected! Critics then discovered that the square meter of rainforest in Dzanga-Sangha costs only a fraction of a cent. The case ended up before the Federal Court of Justice, and the SZ demanded in “Streiflicht” that a drink should go through the country. “Why not close a square meter of ozone hole for every case of a different brand of beer?”

For once, Red Bull is not selling any soda to the people these days, but is instead selling its once most popular coach to the DFB. It does not practice “greenwashing” like Krombacher once did, but rather “lovewashing”. Klopp’s commitment a year ago already had the same purpose for Red Bull that its resale now has: the football project run from Fuschl am See is about acquiring the one good that cannot be bought for any money in the world. The can empire finally wants to be loved.