No brand in recent memory has taken the marketing world by storm quite like Liquid Death. Few brands have as powerful, or impactful, a brand story, as evidenced by its recent $1.4 billion valuation. There is nothing innovative or special about the water in the can; it’s everything around the can, including its intellectual alibi, that makes the brand so magnetic.
The brand eschews all the usual bottled water marketing codes and cues, like water source and purity, in favor of an approach that feels like an over-the-top SNL parody of corporate marketing. Everything from the slogan “Murder your thirst” to the skull imagery on the can, to celebrity partnerships like Steve O getting a real “water tattoo” with Liquid Death water instead of ink, is deliberately unhinged — the exception being the brand’s intellectual alibi of killing plastic pollution, “80% of which ends up in landfills,” according to its website.
It’s quite a worthy cause, and one easily telegraphed via the can, which is not only the vessel for a bigger emotive brand story but also a physical manifestation of their intellectual alibi: Cans are better than plastic, so drink out of a can. It’s a great justification for a purchase decision that is 100% triggered by the brand’s aura and zany acts.
Finding your brand’s intellectual alibi
A brand’s intellectual alibi is sourced from a simple yet irrefutable brand truth. It exists in what I call the brand’s 5 Ps: its Provenance, Product, Process, People and Proprietary attributes.
- Provenance = the place: where the brand is from, its origin story, where it’s made, even the source of the brand’s spirit. No beer transports you to the beach like Corona.
- Process = the work that goes in: the steps, the methods, the science that goes into making the product. Coors Light is the perfect brand to “chill” with because it’s cold filtered.
- People = the brains behind it: the inventors, the tinkerers, the workers that make the product special. Chipotle is “as real as it gets”—that’s why those are real employees doing real food prep in their commercials.
- Product = the parts and pieces: the ingredients, what the brand puts in (or leaves out), the secret sauce. RXBar uses as few and as simple ingredients as possible. There is “No B.S.“—they tell you what’s on the inside on the outside of the package.
- Proprietary = the only: the first, the sole, what no one else can claim. Dyson‘s Hyperdymium motors spin at 125,000 RPM—five times faster on average than a jet engine. That’s why only a Dyson works like a Dyson.