When contemplating who to study from within the advertising and marketing house, one model stands out: Liquid Death.
They’ve mastered the artwork of turning wholesome drinks right into a sought-after model, making them superb advertising and marketing mentors.
However they’ve completed greater than reinvent water — in some ways, they’ve reinvented advertising and marketing, as properly.
I spoke with Greg Fass, Liquid Loss of life’s VP of Advertising and marketing, to find out how he is cultivated an anti-marketing method, why a few of his favourite campaigns contain Tony Hawk and Martha Stewart, and his perception that Liquid Loss of life’s success comes all the way down to understanding folks aren’t “brainless shoppers of merchandise”.
How Liquid Loss of life Wins at Anti-Advertising and marketing — And What You Can Study from Them
1. Do not overcomplicate your target market.
Most goal personas are awfully particular: “Advertising and marketing Melvin likes lengthy walks on the seaside, studying true-crime thrillers, watching movies on TikTok, and is fascinated by budget-friendly methods to develop his e-commerce startup.”
And there is energy in figuring out a couple of key traits of your purchaser – nevertheless it’s additionally inherently limiting.
Fass believes there are many the reason why somebody may join along with your model.
As an illustration, Fass believes his target market might be any of the next:
- Somebody who likes leisure and humor
- Somebody who appreciates the sustainability angle (i.e. “bringing dying to plastic”)
- Somebody who acknowledges that Liquid Loss of life is the rationale their youngster is lastly excited to drink water
- A sober-curious particular person who needs to have a fun-looking drink whereas at a celebration
- Individuals who like skulls
I am going to add one only for enjoyable: Thirsty folks.
Granted, water arguably has the most important demographic of any product on the market. However his level nonetheless holds true: Get too hyper-focused on increase your ‘goal persona’ and you can be lacking out on all of the totally different causes somebody may join along with your model first – and your product second.
2. Individuals aren’t brainless shoppers.
This is a enjoyable reality: At Liquid Loss of life, they do not use the phrase shopper. Ever.
As a substitute, they’ve a workforce referred to as “human insights”.
Fass is proud to work in opposition to the mindset that persons are simply “brainless shoppers” whose sole function on Earth is to eat merchandise. (Yep – that is a direct quote.)
As a substitute, he says, “At Liquid Loss of life, I am proud that we consider our audiences as folks. And if you consider them as people, you perceive they will get a bit of copy that is not simple, or jokes different manufacturers are afraid to make. They’re clever, and have a humorousness.”
It is a philosophy that has served them properly. Simply think about the commercial the place Martha Stewart is a serial killer chopping off fingers to make candles — not precisely one thing that might go over properly in a regular advertising and marketing pitch.
Liquid Loss of life has completed greater than reinvent the better-for-you beverage class — they’ve reinvented advertising and marketing, as properly.
Embracing their anti-marketing method may also help you uncover contemporary and novel methods of connecting higher with, properly, different people.
3. Individuals will purchase your product if you may make them snort.
A Liquid Loss of life advertising and marketing assembly seems like the start of a really odd joke: The lead singer of a punk band, an ex-Onion author, a co-creator of grownup cartoon Mr. Pickles, and a former aggressive snowboarder all stroll right into a convention room.
Fass says it resembles an SNL writers room greater than a advertising and marketing division.
“We’re not only a model that is a humorous model,” Fass tells me. “We put out true comedy. That is the bar for us. I am proud to work on initiatives that compete with actual leisure that exists on the web, as a result of that is why most individuals are on the web within the first place. To not purchase a product.”
You have to hand it to them: It isn’t simple to create a hilarious advert for water or iced tea. But it surely works as a result of Liquid Loss of life’s content material is not actually concerning the product. The product is an apart to grandiosity and playfulness. That is what they’re promoting.
Like their recent campaign the place a fan might win a $400K fighter jet together with six months of free hangar house (pilot not included); or Ozzy Ozbourne reminding youths to not snort Liquid Loss of life’s new hydration powder.
For Fass, it is easy: “When you may make somebody snort, they’re extra seemingly to present your product a strive.”
4. Do not publish if you do not have something worthwhile to say.
Fass hates the traditional knowledge that it is best to “at all times be posting.” For Fass, an obsession with amount can in a short time diminish good content material.
At Liquid Loss of life, they will not publish for 2 weeks if they do not really feel they’ve something worthwhile to say.
“There’s celebrities and hilarious meme accounts on social media — that is why persons are on there,” he says, “The bar on social could be very excessive. So it’s essential to be competing at that highest degree with all the pieces you do.”
He additionally tells me he cannot consider when huge manufacturers push apart social as a “nice-to-have” or one thing for the interns to steer.
“Try to be placing your prime brains in inventive on social,” he fervently believes. “There is a feeling like, ‘Nicely, it is simply social.’ At Liquid Loss of life, social is a serious precedence for our whole model and artistic workforce.”
5. Humor comes all the way down to stress.
Fass believes there is a sure comedic science behind Liquid Loss of life’s success, and it is comparatively easy: Rigidity.
In different phrases — two issues that should not go collectively, however do.
Case-in-point: A wholesome beverage with a cranium on it; e.l.f. Cosmetics and black metal corpse paint; plush sea creature stuffed animals which were closely mutilated by single-use plastic.
You get my drift.
“What it comes all the way down to is we’ve these concepts that different folks would by no means strive,” Fass says. “They’d suppose, ‘no approach a consumer would ever approve of this’, or ‘our CEO will shut it down’. These concepts by no means get to see the sunshine of day — however at Liquid Loss of life, we have created a tradition the place we have fun these concepts and go ahead with them.”
And you recognize,“ he provides with a smile, ”Generally we find yourself profitable the web that day.”
