How Liquid Death Turned Water into a $1.4 Billion Brand & Murdered the Amazon Market

What do you think of when you hear the name “Liquid Death”? Probably not water. 

Liquid Death has emerged as a disruptive force in the saturated bottled water market, turning heads and quenching thirst with its unique approach to packaging, marketing, and everything in between. 

Known for its edgy branding and commitment to sustainability, Liquid Death has rapidly grown into a significant player, especially on platforms like Amazon — not to mention, Liquid Death is now worth $1.4 billion. 

This article explores the rise of Liquid Death, detailing its origins, growth, and the innovative marketing strategies that have propelled it to success.

The birth of Liquid Death

Liquid Death was founded by Mike Cessario, a former creative director in the advertising industry. 

He initially thought of the idea back in 2009 when attending the Vans Warped Tour music festival. After meeting some band members, Mike discovered that many were drinking water from Monster Energy drink cans, the tour’s sponsor that year. 

So, he thought, why aren’t there products with similar branding to companies such as Monster or beer brands with something actually healthy? 

He envisioned a brand that could make water as exciting as an energy drink or a beer, appealing particularly to a younger, more rebellious demographic. Plus, it would allow those who don’t want to drink alcohol to “fit in” at the bar or other social drinking setting. 

Liquid Death was officially launched in 2019 with a mission to “Murder Your Thirst” and, in doing so, tackle the environmental issue of plastic waste. The brand’s water comes in tallboy aluminum cans, a deliberate choice to reduce plastic pollution, which is clear by their slogan “Death to Plastic.”

Using the power of social media to get the word out

One of the pivotal moments in Liquid Death’s journey was the initial use of Facebook to generate interest and attract investors. In 2018, Liquid Death was still just an idea. An idea to turn a boring thing, such as water, into something cool and edgy. 

Mike Cessario needed investors to help him get the product to market, but initially, investors and others in the beverage industry stated that the branding made the water look too much like beer and that no retailer would want to sell a product with “Death” in the name. 

To prove them wrong, he created an ad for Liquid Death that was unlike anything the water industry had ever seen and posted it to Facebook. 

He wanted to steer away from the typical boring corporate marketing you see from large national brands because no one wants to watch an ad. But an ad that is funny and entertaining? Yes, please. 

He poured a few thousand dollars into promoting the video through Facebook ads. After a couple of months, the video had 3 million views, their Facebook page had 80,000 followers, and hundreds of comments from people asking, “where can I buy this?”

To make a long story short, Liquid Death received $1.6 million in seed funding from Science Ventures in January 2019 and started selling through its website within a month. 

Partnering with the right audience

In 2021, Liquid Death partnered with Live Nation to become the exclusive water offered at many venues and festivals across the United States. “Music has been a huge part of our DNA since the beginning. We can’t wait to get back to live shows, support our favorite artists, and help kill plastic water bottles at concerts,”Cessario said at the time.

Then in 2023, Liquid Death partnered with Download, a massive music festival in the metal community. That year, festivalgoers drank more than double the amount of water than the year before and reduced plastic waste by hundreds of thousands of bottles during that years UK fesitival season. 

Being that Mike originally thought of the idea while at a music festival, tapping into the festival market was a stroke of pure marketing genius. 

Liquid Death’s growth and expansion

For the first year, Liquid Death only sold on their website, but in 2020, they expanded to Whole Foods, allowing them to reach nearly $10 million in sales that year. Now the brand is in more than 100,000 stores worldwide, is one of the top selling water brands on Amazon, and worth over $1.4 billion.

Here’s a snapshot of Liquid Death’s estimated revenue and units sold over the last year in Jungle Scout Cobalt. 

Looking at the Jungle Scout Extension, it seems Liquid Death didn’t launch on Amazon until February 2023. 

Even though they haven’t been on the platform for that long, Liquid Death is the number one best seller in the Mineral Drinking Water subcategory. 

5 key Liquid Death marketing strategies

Liquid Death’s success results from its unconventional and highly effective marketing strategies. Here’s a look at how the brand markets itself so effectively:

1. Bold branding

Liquid Death’s branding is unlike any other in the bottled water market. The heavy metal aesthetic, complete with skull imagery and irreverent slogans, captures attention and creates a memorable brand identity that stands out on both shelves and screens.

2. Engaging content

The brand’s content strategy is designed to entertain and engage. From humorous commercials to viral social media posts, Liquid Death creates shareable content that resonates with its target audience. Their videos often feature absurd humor and over-the-top scenarios, aligning with the brand’s rebellious image.

3. Environmental commitment

Liquid Death’s commitment to sustainability is a core part of its brand identity. By using aluminum cans and partnering with organizations to reduce plastic waste, the company appeals to environmentally conscious consumers. Their “Death to Plastic” campaign further emphasizes this commitment, creating a strong, purpose-driven narrative.

4. Influencer and celebrity endorsements

Leveraging influencers and celebrities who align with the brand’s edgy image has helped Liquid Death reach wider audiences. These endorsements lend credibility and attract fans of the endorsers to try the product.

Check out this recent ad done with Ozzy Osbourne. 

5. Creative packaging and product names

The choice of aluminum cans aligns with the sustainability mission and differentiates the product visually (and obviously the metal-inspired logo.) The tallboy cans, typically associated with beer, create a unique image for a bottled water product, making it a conversation starter.

Some of their new products, which come in different flavors, have names that stand out, to say the least: Dead Billionaire, Convicted Melon, Berry It Alive, and Cherry Obituary, just to name a few. 

How does Liquid Death perform on Amazon?

Now, let’s get to the good stuff! We’ll explore a segment built in Jungle Scout Cobalt for Amazon’s mineral drinking water subcategory. It will show us the top brands and their estimated revenue over the past year.

(FYI: Liquid Death also has products in other subcategories, such as sparkling water and iced tea, but we’re just looking at mineral drinking water.)

Liquid Death owns 9% of the mineral drinking water market on Amazon, which is impressive for a brand that launched just over five years ago. 

Liquid Death’s strong Amazon strategy has led them to this significant growth in an otherwise crowded market. Of course, their unique, over-the-top branding has sparked interest and searches across Amazon. 

Keyword data

Let’s look at the keyword “Liquid Death” within Keyword Scout. It averages over 34,000 weekly searches and has been consistently trending upwards. 

I stated earlier that Liquid Death launched on Amazon in February 2023. You can see a significant spike in search volume, as they likely announced their presence on Amazon through their various channels. 

Revenue

Despite being the number one best seller within the mineral drinking water category on Amazon, Liquid Death is number five in revenue by brand. Which, again, is very impressive.

This could be due to a number of factors, such as a higher average selling price (ASP) due to larger quantity packs, more variations, and so on. 

For example, look at the estimated units sold column and see that Essentia Water, FIJI, and Liquid Death have similar units sold (Liquid Death with the most) but much different revenues. Liquid Death sells the most units but has a lower ASP than the other brands. 

Knowing this information as a brand owner, you could consider other options in order to increase your overall ASP such bigger quantity packs in order to grow revenue and market share. 

This shows just how powerful and robust the data is in Jungle Scout Cobalt for large brands. 

Social media

We believe Liquid Death’s Amazon success is due to their use of hilarious and shocking social media content, which is a mix of funny skits (including this one where they created a death metal album based off of hate comments!), ads created with celebrities and influencers, and even some user-generated content (UGC). They have 3.6 million followers on Instagram and all of their content receives tons of views and an impressive amount of engagement because they prioritize “entairtainment over marketing.” 

In just these 12 posts, they have gotten over 40,000,000 views!! 

Let’s compare that to one of their biggest competitors, Fiji Water. They have 150,000 followers, but their content doesn’t get much engagement. Plus, it has a boring corporate marketing vibe, the exact thing Liquid Death wants to avoid with its marketing. 

Liquid Death has posted 903 times on Instagram, and Fiji has posted 833 times. Still, Liquid Death has 24x the followers because of their humorous and engaging content, which doesn’t conform to the typical corporate marketing strategy. 

Final thoughts

Liquid Death has successfully carved out a unique niche by breaking the mold of traditional bottled water branding and leveraging the vast reach of platforms like Amazon. As they continue to expand and engage with their audience, the future looks promising for this rule-breaking brand.