NBA’s Jalen Green Partners With Liquid Death in a Bloody Fun Hoops Game
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Fans of the Houston Rockets know Jalen Green as a hot-shooting guard with five 40-point games under his belt in his nascent NBA career. But maybe less obvious about the young player is his twisted sense of humor, which meshes well with his new brand partner, Liquid Death.
Green, a first-round draft pick straight from high school, stars in Liquid Death’s latest campaign alongside a screaming, disembodied head—created with special effects—continuing the brand’s penchant for horror-comedy in its marketing and planting its flag deeper into mainstream professional sports.
The 21-year-old standout “embraces the hilariousness of Liquid Death and gets that we can have some fun with how athletes and brands traditionally work together,” Andy Pearson, vice president of creative, told Adweek. “That made him the perfect person to help us get in front of the next generation of basketball fans who hate traditional marketing as much as we do.”
The 60-second video, dubbed Severed Head Basketball, takes its cues from vintage Saturday morning commercials and launches a piece of merchandise that turns the brand’s “murder your thirst” motto into a bloody-fun collectible.
The mini-movie also announces Green as an investor in the company and the first NBA brand ambassador, joining a celebrity roster that includes Tony Hawk, Steve-O, Bert Kreischer and Dorothea “The Godmother of Drumming” Taylor, a self-proclaimed heavy metal granny.
In-house creatives at the brand, in considering ways to unveil Green as a new collaborator, decided to develop a collectible basketball that resembled a human head but with cartoonishly gruesome accents. Will Carsola, creator of Adult Swim’s Mr. Pickles and frequent Liquid Death collaborator, designed the limited-edition swag.
For the video, the team scoured toy advertising from ‘90s TV, along with Michael Jordan’s promos for Wheaties and Gatorade.
“The whole thing became an homage to that sort of celebrity endorsement from that era, when all the ads told you to be like your hero,” Pearson said. “When we presented it to Jalen, he just laughed and said he loved it.”
Liquid Death’s relationship with Green stretches back several years, with the brand’s senior vice president of digital retail and avid hoops fan, Hamid Saify, learning that Green was a devotee of the canned water and keeping him stocked in the product. For Green’s second year in the NBA, the time was right to “join forces and make something together,” Pearson said.
The comically horrifying “Hoop Head” costs $125 on LiquidDeath.com, following in the footsteps of other wacky merch like the skateboards infused with Hawk’s blood and the VHS cassettes of Kreischer’s instructional workout videos.
CREDITS
- Co-founder/CEO: Mike Cessario
- Svp of marketing: Dan Murphy
- Svp of digital retail: Hamid Saify
- Vp of creative: Andy Pearson
- Vp of marketing: Greg Fass
- Vp of design: Franke Dresmé
- Vp of cultwear: Misha Brunelli
- Creative director: Will Carsola
- Associate creative director: Stu Golley
- Senior brand manager: Tia Sherwood
- Senior nihilist: Brendan Kelly
- Apparel production and sourcing manager: Sean Snirk
- Director: Daniel Stessen
- Executive producer: Johnny Eastlund
- Senior producer: Tatianna Rodriguez
- Production coordinator: Emily Draznik, Tanner Blount
- Director of photography: Mårten Tedin
- Still photographer: Arturo Almos
- Gaffer: Josh Arriazola
- Key grip: Cesar Quintanilla
- Wardrobe stylist: Stefania Maso
- SFX MUAs: Manny Lemus, Casey Jay Wong, Dahlia Carmichael
- Location manager: Chris Lacher
https://www.adweek.com/creativity/nbas-jalen-green-partners-with-liquid-death-in-a-bloody-fun-hoops-game/