When contemplating who to study from within the advertising house, one model stands out: Liquid Dying.
They’ve mastered the artwork of turning wholesome drinks right into a sought-after model, making them very best advertising mentors.
However they’ve executed greater than reinvent water — in some ways, they’ve reinvented advertising, as effectively.
I spoke with Greg Fass, Liquid Dying’s VP of Advertising, to find out how he is cultivated an anti-marketing strategy, why a few of his favourite campaigns contain Tony Hawk and Martha Stewart, and his perception that Liquid Dying’s success comes right down to understanding individuals aren’t “brainless customers of merchandise”.
How Liquid Dying Wins at Anti-Advertising — And What You Can Study from Them
1. Do not overcomplicate your audience.
Most goal personas are awfully particular: “Advertising Melvin likes lengthy walks on the seashore, studying true-crime thrillers, watching movies on TikTok, and is enthusiastic about budget-friendly methods to develop his e-commerce startup.”
And there is energy in figuring out a number of key traits of your purchaser – but it surely’s additionally inherently limiting.
Fass believes there are many the reason why somebody may join together with your model.
As an illustration, Fass believes his audience might be any of the next:
- Somebody who likes leisure and humor
- Somebody who appreciates the sustainability angle (i.e. “bringing dying to plastic”)
- Somebody who acknowledges that Liquid Dying is the explanation their youngster is lastly excited to drink water
- A sober-curious particular person who needs to have a fun-looking drink whereas at a celebration
- Individuals who like skulls
I will add one only for enjoyable: Thirsty individuals.
Granted, water arguably has the most important demographic of any product on the market. However his level nonetheless holds true: Get too hyper-focused on increase your ‘goal persona’ and you might be lacking out on all of the completely different causes somebody may join together with your model first – and your product second.
2. Folks aren’t brainless customers.
Here is a enjoyable reality: At Liquid Dying, they do not use the phrase client. Ever.
As an alternative, they’ve a workforce referred to as “human insights”.
Fass is proud to work in opposition to the mindset that persons are simply “brainless customers” whose sole goal on Earth is to eat merchandise. (Yep – that is a direct quote.)
As an alternative, he says, “At Liquid Dying, I am proud that we consider our audiences as individuals. And once you consider them as people, you perceive they will get a chunk of copy that is not simple, or jokes different manufacturers are afraid to make. They’re clever, and have a humorousness.”
It is a philosophy that has served them effectively. Simply contemplate the industrial the place Martha Stewart is a serial killer chopping off arms to make candles — not precisely one thing that will go over effectively in a regular advertising pitch.
Liquid Dying has executed greater than reinvent the better-for-you beverage class — they’ve reinvented advertising, as effectively.
Embracing their anti-marketing strategy may also help you uncover recent and novel methods of connecting higher with, effectively, different people.
3. Folks will purchase your product if you may make them giggle.
A Liquid Dying advertising assembly appears like the start of a really odd joke: The lead singer of a punk band, an ex-Onion author, a co-creator of grownup cartoon Mr. Pickles, and a former aggressive snowboarder all stroll right into a convention room.
Fass says it resembles an SNL writers room greater than a advertising division.
“We’re not only a model that is a humorous model,” Fass tells me. “We put out true comedy. That is the bar for us. I am proud to work on tasks that compete with actual leisure that exists on the web, as a result of that is why most individuals are on the web within the first place. To not purchase a product.”
You have to hand it to them: It isn’t simple to create a hilarious advert for water or iced tea. However it works as a result of Liquid Dying’s content material is not actually concerning the product. The product is an apart to grandiosity and playfulness. That is what they’re promoting.
Like their current marketing campaign the place a fan might win a $400K fighter jet together with six months of free hangar house (pilot not included); or Ozzy Ozbourne reminding youths to not snort Liquid Dying’s new hydration powder.
For Fass, it is easy: “When you may make somebody giggle, they’re extra doubtless to present your product a strive.”
4. Do not publish if you do not have something worthwhile to say.
Fass hates the traditional knowledge that you must “at all times be posting.” For Fass, an obsession with amount can in a short time diminish good content material.
At Liquid Dying, they will not publish for 2 weeks if they do not really feel they’ve something worthwhile to say.
“There’s celebrities and hilarious meme accounts on social media — that is why persons are on there,” he says, “The bar on social may be very excessive. So it’s essential to be competing at that highest degree with every little thing you do.”
He additionally tells me he cannot consider when massive manufacturers push apart social as a “nice-to-have” or one thing for the interns to guide.
“You ought to be placing your high brains in artistic on social,” he fervently believes. “There is a feeling like, ‘Effectively, it is simply social.’ At Liquid Dying, social is a serious precedence for our whole model and inventive workforce.”
5. Humor comes right down to stress.
Fass believes there is a sure comedic science behind Liquid Dying’s success, and it is comparatively easy: Stress.
In different phrases — two issues that should not go collectively, however do.
Case-in-point: A wholesome beverage with a cranium on it; e.l.f. Cosmetics and black steel corpse paint; plush sea creature stuffed animals which were closely mutilated by single-use plastic.
You get my drift.
“What it comes right down to is we’ve these concepts that different individuals would by no means strive,” Fass says. “They’d assume, ‘no means a shopper would ever approve of this’, or ‘our CEO will shut it down’. These concepts by no means get to see the sunshine of day — however at Liquid Dying, we have created a tradition the place we have a good time these concepts and go ahead with them.”
And you recognize,“ he provides with a smile, ”Generally we find yourself profitable the web that day.”
