‘Everybody hates marketing’: Liquid Death creative VP reveals how company’s ‘take down’ on advertising is taking over the industry
Having only launched in 2018, Liquid Death was reportedly valued at $US1.4 billion earlier this year. So, what’s the secret to success? We spoke with the company’s VP of creative to find out.
Appearing on a new episode of Mumbrella’s one-on-one podcast series, Andy Pearson recalled founder Mike Cessario reaching out to him to join the team and both had the creative vision for the company to “take down” marketing, which is a bold strategy, especially given that the canned water brand – which launched in Woolworths across Australia last month – uses taglines like “murder your thirst”.
“The stuff that we do where it’s like a parody of a traditional advertising format that you’re used to seeing – people love that stuff because everybody hates marketing,” Pearson told host Neil Griffiths.
“Given the choice between being marketed to or not being marketed to, 99.9% of people would be like, ‘I’ll take the not ever being marketed to in my life’ [option].
“I think we don’t acknowledge that enough in the industry.”
Pearson continued: “That’s been the fun thing with what we’ve been doing is, like, building something that is designed to maybe correct all the stuff that we haven’t liked in every job we’ve had previously… it’s so cathartic to let go of all this junk that we’ve been holding on [to] and this resentment and turn that into really positive energy. Because I think there’s a lot of unhealthy habits and tendencies in the industry.”
Pearson listed a number of those “unhealthy habits”, but the key one for him is very simple.
“The biggest thing is the undervaluing of fun,” he began.
“The thing I actually love hearing the most when people talk about Liquid Death to me is like, ‘Man, you guys just feel like you’re having a lot of fun over there.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes! Thank you.’
“That’s what I want it to feel like on the outside. I want to feel like, ‘I don’t know who the people are behind this, but man, they’re having fun with this.’
“[The industry doesn’t] value fun. OK – take a step away from that. Why? What is the thing stopping us from doing that?”
Listen to the full podcast with Pearson here.
Andy Pearson
Keep up to date with the latest in media and marketing
Got a tip?
Neil Griffiths is the Managing Editor of Mumbrella. He joined the company in October 2023.
Linkedin
The anti-marketing marketer.
User ID not verified.
But what is marketing but a ‘straight talkin’ ad man’, the clumsy loose-lipped but compelling sweaty salesperson, rather than the alleged invisible mystique … of suggestion … purr?
User ID not verified.
Have your say