Crossover audience
Marchisotto said she didn’t analyze data about the brands’ shared demographics—or metal subcultures—but relied instead on deep knowledge of the e.l.f. loyalists.
“The insight is that our community wants to have fun and be entertained,” she added. “We have an enormous amount of respect for people’s time, and if they’re hanging out with us, we want to make sure we’re providing something creative and clever.”
To that end, e.l.f. took a handful of its existing products, such as its putty applicator and H2O Proof Eyeliner Pen, and gave them Liquid Death-style makeovers for the promotion.
“These products have never been inside a closed casket before,” Marchisotto said, “so we’ve stretched them into an entirely new dimension.”
The collaborators started seeding the product launch Monday with cryptic social posts that showed only a black lipstick mark on a can of Liquid Death.
The response was immediate, with nearly 33,000 comments in the first few hours alone on e.l.f.’s Instagram. Fans called it “the collab of the year,” liberally sprinkling fire and heart emojis and “omgomgomg” into their posts.
Influencers and celebrities are set to take part in the rollout, via “get ready with me” posts, but neither Liquid Death nor e.l.f. would name names or give more specifics.
Visit from Glothar
The video to announce the partnership, created by Liquid Death’s in-house team, takes the brand’s trademark satirical approach, tapping into 1990s nostalgia and borrowing the cheery tone of old-school toy commercials.
“We started with this really bizarre premise—this is a world where everybody listens to black metal like it’s another boy band,” Pearson said. “And then we treated that premise very normally.”