Liquid Death: Water Made Metal

LIQUID DEATH: WATER MADE METAL¹

The canned-water company Liquid Death was founded in 2017 by Mike Cessario, a punk and heavy-metal musician and a former creative director for the streaming platform Netflix.² By early 2022, the brand had raised over US$125 million³ in venture capital funding and was being distributed throughout the United States in major retailers including Whole Foods Market, Target, and 7-Eleven.⁴ Liquid Death was also one of the top ten bestselling water brands on the online retail giant Amazon, along with Nestlé products and prestige water brands such as Essentia Water, Evian, Perrier, and Fiji Water.⁵ Liquid Death’s rise to prominence was facilitated by its distinctive packaging, irreverent and aggressive marketing content, and environmental purpose. The brand’s tagline was “murder your thirst,” and much of Liquid Death’s promotional content and events pushed the limits of shock and humour. Packaged in black-and-white tallboy cans featuring a melting skull, the product looked a lot like a craft beer or an energy drink. The purpose of the aluminum can packaging was to help bring “death to plastic” by offering an option that was more environmentally friendly than plastic bottles.⁶

The brand had also cultivated a tight community of hard-core fans and followers. Their commitment was demonstrated on the brand’s social media pages, which, in addition to featuring fan art and images of users drinking Liquid Death water in various settings, showed photos of users who had the brand logo—a melting skull—tattooed onto various parts of their bodies.⁷

However, Liquid Death was still a relatively new brand and was focused on growing. Thus, to expand the brand’s presence, the company needed to decide which customers to target, whether or not to develop new products or line extensions, how to continue to use promotions and communications to maintain the brand’s “cool” and eco-friendly image while appealing to a broader range of consumers, and how to stave off competitive threats. In short, Liquid Death needed to develop a growth strategy to expand its presence and customer base as well as establish itself as an enduring brand in the packaged water industry.

COMPANY OVERVIEW

What set Liquid Death apart from other water brands most clearly was its consistently irreverent and aggressive marketing tactics. For example, in one advertisement, while pouring water out of a Liquid Death can, the narrator says:

For years, a bunch of marketing f—boys have tricked you into thinking that water is just some girly drink for yoga moms. Just look at all the cute brand names and dainty little bottles. Well, hold on to your hot dogs because I’ve got news: Water isn’t cute. Water is deadly. It kills innocent surfers and snowboarders and kayakers. Every year, water is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths. Energy drinks only kill like, what, one or two kids? So please, don’t fall for the marketing bull—t. Water is not yoga. Water is liquid death. and that’s why this brand needs to exist. To finally give water the ice-cold can and ice cold name it deserves. A brand that parents will hate, but kids might love…made from the deadliest stuff on earth.

In the comments on YouTube, where the ad is posted, one user wrote, “not going to lie, after seeing that random ass commercial...I bought a case of this water just because it made me laugh my ass off. We need more commercials and marketing like this.” Another user said:

Litteraly [sic] the only ad that

I didn’t skip

I checked out their product page

I bought a 12 pack from.Damn.

Yet another user commented, “This was the most metal water commercial ever.”

On its website, Liquid Death described itself in the following way: “We’re just a funny water company who hates corporate marketing as much as you do. Our evil mission is to make people laugh and get more of them to drink more water more often, all while helping to kill plastic pollution.” Indeed, the reason Liquid Death was sold in aluminum cans was because metal cans were easier to recycle and more likely to be recycled than plastic water bottles. Additionally, metal cans were usually made with 58 per cent recycled content on average, compared to just 3 per cent for plastic in the United States. Thus, in canning their water, Liquid Death aimed to reduce overreliance on plastic and offer a more environmentally friendly water option for consumers.

In coming up with the idea for Liquid Death, Cessario was inspired by his personal and professional experiences. Growing up, Cessario played in punk-rock and metal bands and briefly worked in the action sports industry. “I always noticed that energy drinks and unhealthy things basically own that space,” Cessario said. “And they’re the only beverage or food companies that are investing in that culture. Meanwhile, me and a lot of my friends, we’ve never really drank energy drinks. We were vegetarians. We were about health.” According to Cessario, “A lot of the brands that are in the alternative space are really unhealthy. It’s a lot of cheap gross beer and energy drinks that most people don’t want to drink. We wanted to give people permission to participate in this cool rock-and-roll brand without needing to consume something gross.” He went on to say, “I always had this idea: What would happen if you had a really healthy product that was marketed just as over the top as some of these other brands?” Accordingly, Cessario saw an opportunity for an edgy brand to claim some of the bottled water market and beverage industry more generally by creatively distinguishing itself from other packaged water brands and “one-upp[ing] the marketing of all the unhealthy stuff.” And the idea of using a recycling-friendly aluminum can instead of a single-use plastic bottle was timely, given increased consumer interest in sustainable brands and products.

It was out of these observations that the idea for Liquid Death was born. To get started, Cessario assembled a team including Will Carsola, the creator of the Adult Swim TV show called Mr. Pickles, to create marketing content and design Liquid Death’s unique packaging and brand image. Cessario noted, “If you think about it, it makes sense; everything metal and punk is extreme.” He added, “Being vegan is extreme, protesting the deforestation is extreme. There are more vegans at a heavy-metal show than [at a] Taylor Swift show. We are by far the most sustainable option for packaged water, which is a big driver for why people want to buy from us."

However, before investing in creating a tangible product or attempting to raise capital for the venture, Cessario wanted to ensure that the idea would gain traction among consumers. As such, Cessario first shot a commercial for $1,500 and spent about $3,000 on paid Facebook ads. Within a few months, the commercial attracted almost three million views, Liquid Death had more Facebook followers than PepsiCo’s water brand Aquafina, and Cessario was receiving direct messages on Facebook from distributors and 7-Eleven owners asking how they could carry the brand. In reference to this strategy, Cessario said, “I like to compare it to the way [that the] entertainment industry works[,] where every TV show, pretty much, you make a pilot first. You find some low-cost way to see if something is going to be good, and worth investing a lot more into, before you go all-in on it.” Interest in the “pilot” was substantial enough that Cessario raised $1.6 million in seed funding—enough to bring forth the initial product.

The company sold out of its first production run of 150,000 cans in less than eight weeks. Within only a few years, Liquid Death was carried at more than 29,000 locations throughout the United States by various retailers, including Safeway, 7-Eleven, Target, and Walmart, and it soon became the fastest-growing water brand carried by Whole Foods Market.

Target Customers

In terms of who to target first, Cessario said, “At first, we knew the easiest crowd for us is anyone into heavy metal, punk rock, and this world of weird because they immediately get the joke and the humor and have never seen anything like it. What makes this appealing for such a large group is that it feels like a niche thing.” The acceptance of Liquid Death by the punk and metal communities was clear on the company’s social media pages, where members of these communities would often share fan art and videos or pictures of themselves drinking Liquid Death. It was also evident from the popularity of the beverage at punk and metal concerts and music festivals. However, Liquid Death fandom was not isolated to these communities. As Cessario said:

I think it’s pretty clear that Liquid Death is not a normal brand and we’re not really normal people. We’re weird, and it’s a weird brand. If you search the hashtag #liquiddeath on Instagram, you see all different kinds of people posting. People would say, “Oh, well something like Liquid Death, that’s only going to appeal to metal-heads and punk rockers.” It does appeal to them, but we were surprised to see a massive audience of people. We have old ladies coming up to us saying, “This is just the coolest thing, this is so fun.”