How to Market Water?

Within the market category of water, there is very little differentiation. Most bottled water brands have products that are substitutes of each other, very similar packaging and colors. They all focus on the freshness and purity of their products. Competitors like Volvic, Dasani, Nestle, Purisima or Cristalina only have a logo but not necessarily a brand and they play in a market of sameness.

This was Liquid Death's opportunity to completely set itself apart from the crowd, starting with the packaging. Unlike the rest of its competitors, Liquid Death doesn’t sell bottled water, they sell canned water. This creates a very big visual difference inside stores and supermarkets.

The fact that their product is canned is also part of Liquid Death's mission, better defined by them as "Death to Plastic". It is a water brand that seeks to fight against the consumption of single-use plastics, which is why they use aluminum cans for their packaging, a material that is infinitely recyclable. It is a brand with a mission, strong values ​​, and a purpose that is difficult to find elsewhere in the industry.

In addition to the packaging and mission, there is another branding element that helps further differentiate and position Liquid Death as an entirely new product: the name. It's called Liquid Death for god’s sake. They sell the healthiest product possible and they dare put the word Death in the name. Many wouldn't make this risky decision, but Mike Cessario, the brand's creative director and founder, knew that selling water in a traditional way in a market oversaturated with traditional competitors was going to be harder than doing it in a non-traditional way.

The name is only one part of the company’s branding. Through all its designs, content, and language, Liquid Death manages to position itself as a Heavy Metal punk brand. They present themselves very much as an extreme, hardcore, horror product. Their logo is a skull with gothic text, their mascot is a shirtless serial killer with a can for a head, their TV commercials feature demons, torture, witchcraft (watch Superbowl brand activation below), cannibals and their newest brand ambassador is a porn star.

This narrative of breaking the unwritten rules makes this water seem like an entirely new product in the consumer's mind, fueling even more adoption and sales in a difficult-to-penetrate market. They have been on the market for less than 5 years, and they already have their cans in more than 16,000 stores across the US.

Liquid Death is the perfect example of how creativity can be an economic multiplier.