First time here? Iâm Amanda, and this is Creative Growth Memo, a newsletter that breaks down authentic brands (from grassroots baby brands to Fortune 500 behemoths). I give you the cheat codes to build a brand that lasts with: 1 case study/week & 3 actionable tips to build strong brands. If you like what you read here, you can: book a 1:1 call with me, find me on Twitter, or follow me on LinkedIn.
I was running past a huge pickup truck last week.Â
A large man got out.
In one hand: a hefty toolkit.
In the other: A black can. Beer? Energy drink?Â
Water. That looked like beer (but couldnât be? It was 10AM!)Â
It was Liquid Death.
Water.
But Liquid Death have done something no on else in the water category have.Â
This is the story of Liquid Death.
Today
How Liquid Death launched its first commercial before its first can
How building an SNL style âwriters roomâ built Liquid Death a flywheel of attention
Liquid Deathâs bottom line đ°
3 tactics to test drive today
What is it?
Liquid Death is a water brandâŚthat behaves more like a beer brand. But itâs a water brand bucking category convention. For one, itâs valued at $700M. Itâs the most-followed beverage brand on TikTok in the U.S. It was founded by an advertising creative. Itâs probably the most exciting thing in water since the Evian Baby Me ad.
Why is the brand so valuable?
The power of a baked in brand
Liquid Death is a case study in the value of baking your branding into your product.
Itâs easy to forget that when Liquid Death first launched, it was entering an extremely crowded market.Â
Liquid Death is water. Itâs a commodity. A totally rational human wouldnât pay more money for something that they could get for half the price.Â
But one thing Liquid Death understood, and mastered better than anyone else in the category? Humans arenât rational (as much as weâd like to think we are).
People donât want more choice, they want to feel better about the choices that they make.
What Liquid Death does most impressively: take a bold stance and execute on it flawlessly. Again, this isnât new, but ideas, as they say, are cheap, and execution is what matters.Â
And boy do they execute.Â
Weâre going to see how Liquid Death capitalized on creative to drive business results.
The strategy: stand out in a stale industry
Letâs go back to the beginning.Â
When founder Mike Cessario was at Warped Tour, he noticed musicians drinking water out of energy drink cans.Â
âIt was really only energy drinks that were throwing money at these guys,â Cessario said.
But what if a healthy industry actually got interesting marketing?
Boom. The strategy: gain market share in a stale category by being the one exciting product in it.
But letâs rewind: how did they actually stand out?
The $1500 commercial that launched the brandâŚbefore a single can was produced
One of the brandâs first piece of creative was âDeadliest Thing on Earthâ. Key message: Water isn't cute. Itâs deadly.Â
They spent $1500 to produce it.
They didnât have a can - just 3D renders of what the product would look like.Â
They didnât have distribution.
It paid off.
That ad attracted 3M views in 4 months.
The first cans hit the internet in January after an investment of $150K. The first month of sales netted $100K of sales.
Rollout to physical stores: March 2020.Â
Social media is a litmus test for attention. Itâs a way to de-risk your positioning and concept before dumping money into it.
In Mikeâs words đ
âSocial media is like this superpower where you can actually see how people respond to things in the market without actually having to put the product in.â - Mike Cessario, founder of Liquid Death
But Liquid Deathâs team didnât stop at the launch film. They rethought the job of the marketing team.
How Liquid Deathâs marketing team riffs on culture to cash in on attention
Liquid Deathâs team doesnât try to produce âgreat marketing.â They try to entertain people.Â
In other words, theyâre an entertainment brand with a water company attached, not a water brand with a marketing team.
Cessario describes it this way đ
âWe think about our marketing team more like Saturday Night Live. Like, weâre an entertainment machine and weâre constantly trying to put what we put out on the level of an SNL sketch. Like, even though this might be a commercial, what could legitimately find itâs way onto âSaturday Night Liveâ âŚâ
Most businesses love the certainty of key messages and annual planning. Liquid Death does the opposite.Â
Old way:Â
Hire experts to build a brand strategy
Hire an ad agency
Write an annual marketing plan and stick to it no matter what
New way:Â
Test your messaging before your product hits shelves
Build a writers room
Ship fast, gauge response, test & learn
What Liquid Death have done better than anyone in the category is establish a position that allows them to riff on culture, and then execute on it flawlessly, and consistently.Â
If Saturday Night Liveâs 30 year run is any indicator, they have a long road ahead of them.
How a Liquid Deathâs World, Weâre All Just living in it
Liquid Death nails worldbuilding: a concept usually reserved for science fiction or fantasy.
Writers build worlds that capture their readerâs attention.
Liquid Death builds a world that captures their customerâs attention.
And what a world theyâve built:Â
Mixing Tony Hawkâs blood in the paint of a limited run of $500 skateboards
Producing a full-length punk album inspired by comments left by Liquid Death âhatersâ with tracks like âRather Murder Myselfâ and âLiquid Lame-Oâ
Featuring porn star Cherie De Ville in an ad called âDonât F*** The Planetâ
Filming kids & pregnant women partying & passing out at âThe Big Gameâ
Hiring Jackass Director Jeff Tremaine to produce âGrandma Energyâ spruiking Liquid Deathâs iced tea line
Holding a blind taste taze test, where two online haters were invited to win $1,000 if they picked Liquid Death out as the worst water in a lineup
Launching Liquid Death Country Club, where the price of entry is selling your soul (which more than 235,000 fans have done)
Advertising a recycled plastic surgery center, no explanation needed
Partnering with Martha Stewart to sell a $58 Dismembered Moments Candle
Partnering with Travis Barker to sell a $182 Enema of the State Collectible Kit - which sold out in 4 hours
When you build worlds, you attract people who want to be insiders who want to participate in building that world. Liquid Death count:
100 fans who have a Liquid Death tattoo
225,000 fans who have âsold their soulâ to get into Liquid Deathâs Country Club
1 fan who chugged a can of Liquid Death every day for a year (To celebrate, Cessario tattooed the fanâs face on his arm)
And all those insiders add up to a pretty picture for investors.
The bottom line
Price: $1.89/can
Profitable? No, but expect to be by 2024
Liquid Death sales YoY: $2.8M (2019) => $10M (2020) => $45M (2021) => $130M (2022)
Investor line up: Live Nation Entertainments, Machine Gun Kelly, Velvet Sea Ventures, Dollar Shave Clubâs founder & CEO, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, co-founder of Away luggage Jen Rubio
Publicly traded: No, but hired Goldman Sachs in July to lead a potential IPO as soon as next spring
Raises: $1.6 seed (2019), $9M series A (2020), $50M (2021); $75M (2022) - $202M in total
An aside, on business fundamentals
Breaking the brand fangirling here for a controversial take: Brand and buzz are not everything (I know, unexpected coming from me).
But brand building is not the same as business building. You can have a super hot brand, without a super hot business model. Remember WeWork? Too soon?
Profit is a function of revenue minus cost.Â
In early 2022, Liquid Death had a cost problem. Soaring ocean freight costs accounted for 47% of expenses. Cessario has hatched a plan to shift production to the US and created new trucking routes to get cans to as many stores and concert venues as possible.
Hyped brands can accelerate growth, but overhyped brands without solid business foundations can be a death sentence when you have investors who are hungry for returns on the hype.
If they can reduce costs while continuing to build an enduring brand - theyâll be whistling a punk rock, Liquid Death jingle all the way to the bank.
Takeaways and tactics:
Break the category rules. Liquid Death break every rule in the water brand playbook. But rules are made to be broken.
âĄď¸ Tactic: Make a list of the ârulesâ to play by to fit into the category. Then imagine what a brand that broke all of those rules would do.
Test weird ideas on the internet. Youâre probably thinking, yeah, A/B testing is great. But Liquid Death takes creative testing to a new level. Compare them to MSCHF - an art collective that makes viral products that create a lot of press. Donât just test headlines - test ideas.
âĄď¸ Tactic: Steal Liquid Deathâs brief: âWin the internet, today.â Build the muscle of shipping a new video online for under $1000 and less than 2 weeks brief => launch.Â
Repetition doesnât spoil the prayer đ. Liquid Death have been advertising on the same brand platform (death to plastic, murder your thirst) for 4 years. Theyâre not running out of ideas. Thatâs the beauty of constraints (strong brand platform) + consistency.
âĄď¸ Tactic: Make a list of your key messages. Then make a list of 100 ideas that would prove those message. Thought starters: visual metaphors, influencer or celebrity collabs, PR stunts.
TLDR đ
Gathering attention in a companyâs early stage is expensive. If Liquid Death had paid for every one of their acquired customers, theyâd be bankrupt. Brand building is a long-term play, but it can be applied in the early stages of a business as an effective rapid growth strategy that also lays the foundations for an incredibly valuable brand.
Brands who rely on fast-twitch, performance marketing will not endure.
Liquid Death proves that no matter how big or boring the category, thereâs always room for a brand that can capitalize on peopleâs attention.
đ Til next week,
Amanda
I really admire Liquid Death's branding, but where I struggle is that I think the best most legendary companies are ones where stellar brand meets stellar product, and Liquid Death is all brand, no product differentiation.
Love your analyses as always!