How Liquid Death is making funny water

American economist, and computer scientist, Herbert A. Simon said, “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else”.

In other words, the more information and content we keep shoving into the world, the more attention it consumes.

Now if there is one brand that is cutting through all that information right now to get our attention, it has to be Liquid Death.

If you haven’t heard of it yet, you soon will.

It describes itself as a funny beverage company which hates corporate marketing as much as you do—and says that its evil mission is to make people laugh and get them to drink more water more often, all while trying to kill plastic pollution.

In many ways, its mission reminds me of other brilliant rebellious brands like Dollar Shave Club, BrewDog and innocent, which wanted to shake things up, challenge the establishment and push against the tropes of their category.

As Liquid Death’s CEO and former creative director, Mike Cessario said in an interview “Why would you want to follow a f**ing water brand that just posts photos of its bottles all day? If we create actual entertainment and not try to just sell, sell, sell, it will naturally create that fandom for Liquid Death that you can’t even buy with money.”*

How refreshing is that?

A water brand that behaves more like an entertainment company than a water company. That totally gets the value exchange. It's on a mission to be as distinctive as it can be by being audience-first.

This is all underpinned with a promise of 1. Murdering your thirst 2. Bringing death to plastic.

Liquid Death may have taken inspiration from heavy metal and punk rock, and certainly that is present in its brand, but what’s just brilliant is that the rebellious spirit, that is in all of us, lives in the work.

Obviously, the founders are marketers, so, that helps. And I get the feeling that at any mention of a focus group, they would probably run a mile. But the result is we are all part of a community that is growing the brand through fandom.

This brand is maybe only five years old, and already valued at $700M, but if it stays true to itself, they can kill it. 

And if I was a big water brand, I’d be looking over my shoulder.

So, sit back, crack open a can and enjoy the work you wish you had done. I promise it won’t disappoint.