The road less traveled

Sometimes brands want to reflect the emotions and associations people already have with a product category, but other times a brand can use those category insights to figure out where not to go.

The water brand, Liquid Death, is very different from every other brand in the category. For one thing, it’s in a can. For another, there is nothing about the branding that suggests purity or nature.  It seems more like an energy drink or alcoholic beverage – note its Super Bowl ad from a few months ago.

 But that has been very effective.  Liquid Death was originally distributed in bars, tattoo parlors, and liquor stores and its brand devotees consisted of the kinds of people who stereotypically patronize those establishments on a regular basis.  It apparently isn’t uncommon for skate kids and punks to get tattoos of the brand logo. But the brand is now in the process of branching out.  

 As one of the founders put it, “Once you build that core audience, you’re giving people who aren’t part of that culture, like a soccer mom for example, permission to participate in this cool, rock-and-roll brand.”

It is hard to imagine a traditional research approach that would have told the brand to go in this direction, but in crowded categories where there is little differentiation the safe move may be to cut against the existing category associations and norms.