4 deadly strategies to market your brand like Liquid Death.
Liquid Death is the brand of the moment. People are talking about it and marketers want to know the secret of their success.
After reading about the company and tasting the product in a rock concert, I decided to write this blog to dissect the 4 deadly strategies that allowed Liquid Death gain raving fans and set their positioning in the market as the number one punk rock product with the mission to save the world.
But first, I’ll give you some context about the brand.
Liquid Death is a canned water company that is declaring war to plastics. It was co-founded by Mike Cessario, ex-creative director from Netflix, who saw an opportunity in the market when he asked himself: Why bottled water companies market their products to yoga moms and care too little about the planet?
After giving his brand a purpose and a cute hashtag, #DeathToPlastic, Mike and his creative team produced a video as a proof of concept before selling the product on their website.
Liquid Death was meant to appeal heavy metal and punk rock fans, according to Mike Cessario, but their message is a global concern. The brand was born as a response to big corporations that are not doing enough to reduce the production of plastics.
In 2019, the canned water was being sold on their website and by 2020 people were buying it at Whole Foods and at hundreds of 7-Eleven stores. Now you can find it at Live Nation concerts and at a Target close to you.
So, what are they doing different? What can you learn from them? and most importantly, how can you apply their principles into your business?
Here are the 4 deadly strategies to market your brand like Liquid Death.
Deadly Strategy #1: Solve a Meaningful Problem
Millennials and Gen-Z are connecting with brands that are both sustainable and healthy so it’s no surprise that young consumers are supporting a company that is changing the old way of doing business.
Movements like #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter had such an impact in our culture because people are raving for a change. We are part of a generation that are willing to raise our voice in order to solve meaningful problems.
Most companies that are supporting these causes are startups or entrepreneurial ventures. They are born with a motivation to solve meaningful problems for their customers. Their marketing strategies are different because they focus more on their purpose than short-term results.
Liquid Death is not competing in the water industry, they want to change the plastic industry as a whole. The company decided to solve a meaningful problem before executing on the creative. When Mike Cessario decided to declare the war to plastics, the product became the solution to a big problem that affects us all.
Before marketing your brand, think about the meaningful problem that you will solve for others. If you want to make a difference, choose a problem that nobody else is solving and double down on your purpose.
Deadly Strategy #2: Create Your Own Market
Once you decided to solve a meaningful problem, you will position your brand in a unique way. And positioning is not easy. That’s why most products in the market are in a constant ‘race to the bottom’ and If you can’t differentiate your product from the competition, people will see you as a commodity.
Positioning is also about choosing the right customers. If your brand is meant to attract anyone you’ll lose the chance to be meaningful to someone. Most businesses create ‘average products for average people’ like Seth Godin says. But you can do better than that.
So, how can you avoid positioning your brand like everyone else?
A few years ago, my brother Andrés Ochoa recommended me the book Zero To One written by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. This book was made to inspire startups to build a better future by becoming monopolies.
If you haven’t read it, Peter Thiel suggests that your business should raise to the top and become one of a kind because it will allow you to set your prices high enough so you can invest more time and money innovating and helping society advance.
When I told my brother that becoming a monopoly was impractical for small businesses he replied: ‘creating your own market is not’.
Liquid Death positioned their brand and created a new market based on their brand identity. The visuals, voice, and personality of the brand was made to attract a certain group of people who liked a specific kind of music and who believed there should be a better way to consume water.
Which leads us to the third deadly strategy.
Deadly Strategy #3: Communicate with Personality
To be honest, most brands sound the same and that might be our fault as marketers. We’re afraid to stand out, to experiment, to try something that hasn’t been proved. That’s why we’re looking for marketing tactics that work so we don’t have to deal with the fear of being wrong.
We ‘google’ templates, frameworks, ideas, and best practices because we don’t want to fail as marketers. The fear of failing doesn’t let us experiment enough so we end up creating boring personalities for our brands.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Creating the personality of a brand should be fun, creative and inspiring. Brands, like us, are multidimensional and there are three sub-identities that you will focus whenever you create the personality of a brand.
The three sub-identities are:
- The Visual Identity
- The Verbal Identity
- The Value Identity
All three identities must be aligned so your customers can engage with your brand in a meaningful way. How the brand looks, how it sounds, and how it’s positioned in the market will make the difference for your business.
Liquid Death has a specific personality so it makes easier for its audience to connect with their story and help spread their message. The voice is very straight forward and it appeals to a certain type of people.
When you create your brand, don’t focus only on the visual aesthetics. Take your time to create the verbal identity as well because the voice of your brand will connect with the emotions of your customers.
Deadly Strategy #4: Be Creative and Surprise Your Audience
You’re solving a meaningful problem, created your own market, and communicated your brand with personality. Now that you have set the expectations of your brand, the next step is to surprise your audience with creative campaigns that will keep the conversation going.
Creative actions will help your brand to stay in the loop with your audience. At this stage is important to find partnerships with artists that matches the personality of your brand so you can create interesting ways to tell your story but adding a little twist of creativity.
Here’s an example:
After receiving hate comments on social media, the marketing team of Liquid Death partnered with a metal band drummer and produced an album titled ‘Greatest Hates’. Their songs and lyrics were inspired by the most nasty comments they’ve got on their platforms. To promote the album, they created an infomercial-style video that you can watch below (viewer discretion advised).
The idea was a success! More fans were not only dying to buy more product but also they were on a race to get the limited edition of their vinyl. On November 2020, Liquid Death released a second album: ‘Greatest Hates Vol.2’.
Conclusion
Liquid Death is disrupting the market. Mike Cessario and the marketing team are doing a fantastic job at building a brand that makes people talk about it. However, your brand might not want to divide people between fans and haters, and that’s fine.
Not every brand should be a disruptor. But the idea of solving a meaningful problem and creating a community of people around the same values and principles will give your business an advantage that no other brand can match.
In fact, I will challenge you to find a problem that is meaningful to you so you can start a business that’s based on something that you’re passionate about because if it’s important to you, it may be for others as well.
Remember, when marketing your brand ask yourself these questions:
- What meaningful problem am I solving?
- How can I create my own market?
- What’s the personality of my brand?
- How can I keep the conversation going?
Subscribe here to my Newsletter and receive marketing tips that will inspire you launch a marketing message that makes a difference for you and your customers.
