Liquid Death, Stupidly Funny

I’ve always been a water drinker. Growing up, bottled water wasn’t a thing. I would literally pay money for an empty paper cup at the neighborhood pizza shop just so they could fill it with tap water. Little did I know then, my behavior was literally foreshadowing the creation of a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Today the $333.2 billion bottled water business is interesting in that it’s a category that’s essentially comprised of something that most people have access to for free. Sure, there is spring water, and purified water, and mineral water, and distilled water, and flavored water, and sparkling water, water with electrolytes, etc. And the list goes on. While marketers focus on the functional benefits of the product, at the end of the day it’s all still just water. So, with a category ripe for disruption, along comes Liquid Death .

Liquid Death started as a water brand, one that uses comedy and entertainment to make health and sustainability more fun. The name Liquid Death encourages consumers to “Murder Your Thirst” and its aluminum cans reinforce the brand’s motto of “death to plastic.” Speaking to a packed crowd last month at Cannes Lions , Liquid Death founder and CEO Mike Cessario spoke about disruption in his talk entitled “Entertain or Die: Day Trading Attention for the 21st Century.”

When Liquid Death ran this controversial Super Bowl ad with a bunch of young kids binge drinking it’s water set to the soundtrack of the Judas Priest classic “Breaking the Law,” the internet took notice, and the brand took off. As Cessario puts it, “Our brand is all about comedy and making people laugh.” In a world where everything is skippable, Cessario is steadfast in his belief that real entertainment is the cornerstone of the brand.

Liquid Death’s approach to entertainment dovetails the disruption that runs through the brand’s ethos and is front and center in every piece of content they release. Why? Because according to Cessario, “Marketers can be too literal about making sense – there is a tremendous value in confusion. If you can confuse people, you can stop them” hence why he decided to launch a can of water that looks suspiciously like beer. This tactic of confusion has worked, tenfold, with Liquid Death’s recent valuation topping $1.4 billion.

It’s this devotion to chaos marketing and to being what they call “stupidly funny” that has produced some off kilter and highly entertaining work, such as The Adventures of Murder Man , a superhero animation about a man with a can of Liquid Death for a head, and “Do not snort Death Dust” , which stars rocker Ozzy Osbourne promoting the brand’s electrolyte drink mix.

“Long Live Brand” was one of my top five takeaways from this year’s festival. Cessario’s Liquid Death and its’ billion-dollar valuation certainly underscores the importance of brand in today’s culture-driven world. And, in a category where the product is essentially the same, I believe brand wins every time.

Grab a Tall Boy and stay fierce,

Lisa