Liquid Death is a canned water company founded in 2017 with the tagline “Murder your thirst”. The company calls itself “a funny water company who hates corporate marketing as much as you do” with a mission to “make people laugh and get more of them to drink more water more often, all while helping to kill plastic pollution.”
Much of the water industry is founded on concepts of purity and seeing that purity in the water, which is why nearly all bottled water is packaged in single-use plastic bottles. Liquid Death aims to change that with its aluminum can packaging.
Wellness is a big part of its brand mission, including a use as a designated driver drink.
The water category is largely a sea of sameness, with very little differentiation between various brands. Liquid Death’s success lies in being different from other brands and targeting an audience (younger consumers) that isn’t often targeted by other water brands.
Quotes
“Liquid Death is an evil plan to make the world healthier and more sustainable. We’re doing that through trying to replace sugary and unhealthy beverages with water and replacing single-use plastic bottles with infinitely recyclable aluminum cans.” (Andy)
“The (Liquid Death) brand has so many facets to it, people come into it in totally different ways. Some people love the environmental side of it. I’ve heard people say on podcasts, “Oh that sober water, Liquid Death.” We’re not trying to be that, but we want to support anyone making healthier choices.” (Andy)
“If you line up the water category, you ask yourself ‘which one of the same do you want?’” (Andy)
“My job as the lead creative is to give everyone creative whiplash. That’s the fun part about Liquid Death. You never know what we’re going to do next.” (Andy)
“In a world where everyone is trying to build a brand, I don’t think of Liquid Death so much as a brand as it is a character.” (Andy)
“We all know how a lot of brand managers manage their brands. It is very regimented. But most of us as humans are not one personality all the time. We have idiosyncrasies.” (Joseph)
Transcript
00:00.00
vigorbranding
Everyone and today I am here with my friend Andy Pearson he’s the vp of creative of liquid death before I hop in. Let’s start it off right and crack a nice cold liquid death sparkling water.
00:12.29
Andy
A yes.
00:15.26
vigorbranding
While I take my first sip Annie say hello and give a little bit of backstory. Yeah cheers brother.
00:21.49
Andy
Cheers man hey guys. Um I’m as you said I’m Andy Pearson I’m a vp of creative at liquid death which means basically anything that goes out the door that isn’t water is is something that that I kind of look at and and help shape from social ah social stuff we’re doing campaign work signage. Ah partnerships um, merch I mean kind of runs the gamut of basically anything that comes out of out of liquid death goes through me and before that I spent about 13 years on the advertising agency side as a. Copywriter and creative director at a number of um, fairly well well well respectced agencies I guess I’d say but I’m very happy to be a part of liquid death I’ve been there about a year now
01:04.38
vigorbranding
Um, love it. Cool yeah, so we’re going to get into it. Liquid death is for the uninitiated I do want to start off with an anecdote of my initiation so I had heard of liquid death in numerous times. Um. You know, ah the high level here is liquid liquid death is a water company and we’ll put nuance on that throughout the episode I was at a trade show earlier this year I had a bottle of water. It’ll go un names I happen to cross the liquid death. Ah. Event booth and I was like oh you know what? I’ve been meaning to try this, especially the mango cause I heard a lot of good things and my hands were full. So the young lady was like oh do me to hold that for you and so she held my water bottle passed me a liquid death and then she threw the existing water bottle into the trash can and said there I fixed it for you and. Immediately my heart grew 20 times in size and I was like you know what? I bloody love you? Um, so it was a pretty amazing experience and I think indicative of what one would expect from a brand whose name is liquid death. Um, so for those who are uninitiated. Can you give us a little crash course on the magic that is liquid death how it got started the whole premise.
02:19.45
Andy
Sure, Um, someone asked us the other day to distill it down to how you explain it and I guess the shortest way for me to explain Liquid death is to say that it’s an evil plan to make the world healthier and more sustainable. Um, and.
02:34.50
vigorbranding
I Love it.
02:37.25
Andy
We’re doing that through um, trying to replace both sugary and and you know unhealthy beverages with water and replacing plastic bottle single use plastic bottles with infinil recyclable um, and aluminum cans and um. You know the the brand was started about about three years ago um by our founder and Ceo Mike Csarrio and he who himself had a background in the advertising world which you can tell from everything right? It’s ah it’s a highly conceptual brand. Um, and it really came into a space that was.
03:10.43
vigorbranding
Yep.
03:16.11
Andy
I mean when you just look at every other water that’s in the category. It’s all the same same same same same and that’s why liquid death 1 of them I’d say many reasons we’ve had such success is because it just instantly stands out and you’re like what is that and um, yeah, and the the. Basic idea was can. We take the healthiest thing for you water and package it and market it as if it’s the least healthiest thing for you so making it look like a beer stealing kind of the tricks and tropes of ah you know whether it’s energy drink advertising or junk food advertising all these things. And then not just stealing them but actually making fun of them and making them more extreme and sort of satirizing them and in the first place and so building a whole brand that really for the first time is unlocking again. Health and sustainability. But for people that have never had that ever presented to them right? like until now. Um. Most health foods are and in sustainable products are really targeted at like the Npr tote carrying whole foods shopping crowd and um and so we’re just unlocking it for a whole new category of people that everyone cares about having you know in. Everyone cares about what they put in their bodies. Everyone cares about what we’re doing to the planet. But no, 1 ne’s acting like it right? And no, one’s democratizing that in a wider sense and having fun doing it in the first place and so that’s sort of again goes back to kind of the encapsulation of our evil plan.
04:34.59
vigorbranding
Um, or anyway.
04:47.81
vigorbranding
No I absolutely adore it man. It does make sense and I think there’s there’s gotta to be a certain level of satisfaction I mean so you were in the the advertising industry I mean you still are just a client side as as many would call it so Aesario was obviously there as well like you said and and.
04:49.62
Andy
That makes sense.
04:59.52
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
05:06.64
vigorbranding
In the industry we spend a lot of time coming up with um what I think are amazing ideas and I’ve worked on a lot of teams before founding vigor and during the founding and growth of vigor I’ve seen some some brilliant work out there and I’ve seen it just totally shot down watered down beiged out on the floor for something safer.
05:19.58
Andy
Yeah.
05:25.30
vigorbranding
Something a little more comfy and so there’s kind of be a sense of satisfaction in doing this and watching it take off and work a little bit of a I knew it explain to me how how is that felt so far like when you put when you put this out there. You know you kind of have the free rain to do some wild shit.
05:25.76
Andy
You.
05:43.21
vigorbranding
So and I said shit. So I guess the explicit content’s gonna happen. Ah yeah, that’s right.
05:44.86
Andy
I was gonna say you told yeah you told me not just anything you broke the seal man. Um, it’s your fault from hearing out. Um, no I mean I mean it’s I I guess on a personal level. It’s it’s super satisfying I I think um. But I’ll say you know again I wasn’t there from the founding I think for for Mike and for some of the people that were on even earlier. There was a point where all that they heard was like this is never going to work. This is the absolute dumbest idea. No one will ever go for this and you know.
06:11.36
vigorbranding
This.
06:20.50
Andy
Really stuck to creatively stuck to um you know the mission and and and because knew what the what the opportunity was and how to how to grow this thing and um, and so yeah I mean I think it’s incredibly satisfying to to see it everywhere now I think you know I always.. It’s funny because people always be like oh man, you guys are everywhere and we’re like yeah, that’s that’s the idea. Um, but yeah, yeah, but but I mean on a personal level I think it’s It’s really you know after working in and it.
06:43.51
vigorbranding
World domination. The operative word is world. You know.
06:58.50
Andy
In an industry for so long where you have very little agency ironically about what you’re pushing and what you’re helping to promote I think like I had a personal moment or a series of moments years ago where I was like oh I can use my skills to help. Maybe make a difference like we all have these amazing skills that we hone and we can either sell rich crackers or we can like help try to you know change Planet Earth Um, and not saying that not saying that that we’re single handedly doing that. But I do think um.
07:21.28
vigorbranding
Yeah.
07:29.88
Andy
It’s it’s really exciting to be a part of something that I genuinely see a a change in in the way people are are thinking about stuff and and I’ll go back for a second to when you ask about the founding I think. You know, originally the idea was like let’s put water in a beer can and have fun with that idea and Mike and the others as they were working on it. They were like well why is all water put in a plastic bottle like why do? why? Do we do that? Why don’t why don’t we have aluminum cans for water because we have it for everything else. You. Go buy soda. You have aluminum in it. You drink a beard sad aluminum why don’t we do that for water and it really goes back to this the answer they found was it really goes back to this whole premise that the water market is founded on you know purity and and and how pure the water is right? That’s basically how everything is marketed vapor.
08:03.25
vigorbranding
Um.
08:15.43
vigorbranding
And there.
08:22.73
Andy
Ah, Cloud Vapor distilled or all all this stuff like that about the purity and so part of the the idea behind the marketing was like we have to literally put in a clear packaging so that it proves how how pure and clear it is and um and so it.
08:23.32
vigorbranding
Um, yep.
08:41.39
Andy
It’s kind of funny when you think through the result of that marketing strategy is that it’s gotten to us this place where there are plastic bottles that are you know, choking our rivers and Oceans and on our beaches and land and they’re you know, piling up in Landfills. And it all comes from this kind of marketing idea that like people have to see water to know that it’s not full of sludge or something you know and so it really and and so the way I like to kind of think of it is like marketing got us into this into this problem and maybe Liquid death can be.
09:00.42
vigorbranding
Um.
09:06.49
vigorbranding
Is great.
09:18.30
Andy
A little part of what helps get us out of it and helps recalibrate the way we think of you know we think of environmental issues and and our real choices as a brand and so are sorry as as people right? What we choose to support and what we put our money towards and I’m I’m always heartened when I see you know we we express it as this. Ah. Message of like death to plastic is kind of what we always talk about and I’m always heartened to see the kind of social content stuff that people make and post around the brand that come from people that I I don’t think would ever make that kind of content or like. Loudly Proclaim death to plastic ever before but we’re we’re pulling in a lot of new people into this and sort of actively having people actively think about the choices they’re making as consumers and so my hope is that not just for the water category. But in general everyone starts to evaluate.
09:58.39
vigorbranding
Right.
10:17.20
Andy
The choices and then demand better from from companies that are Upstream from them.
10:21.77
vigorbranding
Yeah, and I think what I love about the brand So much is that irreverence but like you said it’s it’s it’s truly ironic that there is this irreverence there is this sort of thumbing at the nose of of what is considered. Um I don’t want to say good branding because this is great branding but like.
10:35.55
Andy
Um, right? yeah.
10:38.10
vigorbranding
This is what this is what water looks like you don’t mean this this is what it has to be now you could put a little mountain on it if you’d like maybe maybe like you said a raincloud that’d be nice, but this is what it looks like so I love that that’s there but 1 of the things and I wonder how much this was or how much this is discussed is yes we have this positive effect. On our planet which is so amazing for all the reasons you laid out but there’s also this looks cool when you’re standing at a bar and you don’t feel so silly being a Dd or just standing there twittling your thumbs you get the experience of drinking a beer. It’s in a pounder.
11:04.43
Andy
Sure.
11:11.62
Andy
Yeah.
11:14.22
vigorbranding
Um, so you know there probably is some measurable decline and in in drunk driving as well I don’t want to like start labeling things I’m sure you haven’t measured it but was that part of some of the thinking is like how do we make this just badass enough to where people like drinking a hinabar.
11:19.20
Andy
Um, yeah.
11:27.51
Andy
Totally yeah I mean that was sort of the idea was to make a party water you know so again same thing that things that you know so that you don’t feel like the lamo that’s having to order like another diet Coke or whatever from the like you know.
11:35.40
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.
11:45.50
Andy
Um, that’s absolutely part of it and I think the funny thing is um, we’re kind of here for everybody for whatever choices I don’t We’re not trying to be like a sober water and it’s really funny because I think a lot of people. The brand has so many has so many facets to it.
11:56.75
vigorbranding
Um, you know.
12:03.29
Andy
That I find that people come into it in in totally different ways. Some people love the environmental side of it. Some people I’ve heard like there’s been other podcasts where they like oh that’s sober water liquid death. Um, and you know that’s not we’re never pushing that kind of thing if you look at our Instagram feed we have cocktails that we make out of. Like with death all the time you know, um, we’re not We’re not trying to be that. But obviously we want to support anyone in in making healthier choices and so whether that’s like literally you know we don’t drink enough water. We all need to drink more water or whether that’s like hey replacing your maybe replace your beer with um. You know with a water instead or if you don’t drink at all. Um, here’s something that you can carry or we get we get emails all the time from you know, parents of teenagers that are like thank you so much. My my child was addicted to energy drinks and like was just drinking energy drinks every single day. And they’ve switched over and now they can they really enjoy drinking liquid death and literally so you know helping improve their health and and well-being so that idea of wellness can be in a lot of different senses and I think the. The cool thing about the brand is we have so many different parts to us that we kind of contain all those simultaneously and however you find your way to it whether it’s the humor whether it’s the eco message whether it’s the health. Whatever it is like we’re we’re there for that and then we’ll give you something else by saying like hey not only that but you don’t have to have a plastic bottle or not only that. But.
13:35.90
Andy
Make really hilarious content instead of ads. So there’s sort of a different ways in and then and then you, you’re you’re in from there. You know.
13:35.37
vigorbranding
Um, yeah.
13:42.88
vigorbranding
Yeah I mean I love that you guys have practiced what you preach look you’re you’re zigging when everyone else is zagging or zag whenever else Zigs I forget which one it is and and it’s working like I said so oh yeah yeah I like that one I mean.
13:50.35
Andy
Yeah I heard I did the other day I heard pee whenever else is pooing so I was like yeah, we’ll do that too.
14:01.31
Andy
Um.
14:01.98
vigorbranding
I’ll leave it anyway. So yes, um, that could be a complete dangerous rabbit hole of ah hilarity. But um so the water category in in general has been amazing to watch especially if you kind of pull in the alcoholization of seltzers and all of that.
14:11.73
Andy
Um, yeah.
14:19.33
vigorbranding
And and it wasn’t but maybe what fifteen twenty years ago you know I remember my dad scoffing at buying a bottle of water you know like if we got water at home I why do you need that. But now we have stuff like liquid death we have aha we have ah Waterloo we have Lacroix which has been around for a while. Maybe it’s lax. We don’t know.
14:28.30
Andy
Yeah.
14:39.60
vigorbranding
Um, the list goes on and now I mean I even saw blackwater I don’t know if that’s on your radar where the water is literally black. Um I think it has carbon in it and yeah, well so for me, it was new. Yeah, and so it’s amazing to see Um, how.
14:43.43
Andy
Yeah, yeah, that’s been around for a while yeah activated charcoal. It’s been on for a while. Yeah.
14:55.58
vigorbranding
What is the path forward for liquid death. How do you maintain your position. How do you strengthen it and and what do those conversations look like inside the 4 walls. Maybe maybe not what they look like. Ah.
15:04.91
Andy
I I don’t know that I can get in. Yeah well I mean I I don’t know that I can go into too much of detail on that I’ll just say you know I think that we have carved out and. Increasingly large niche of this very large pie and I think um, you know we’re growing we’re growing rapidly um we just had a wall street journal article about us this past weekend that came out and and it it was mentioned were expected to grow by 300 % next year I mean we’re we’re.
15:40.57
vigorbranding
For amazing.
15:42.95
Andy
Going nuts. Um, and because people you know want healthier again people want healthier choices. We’re giving something that is just doesn’t exist and we’re approaching the way we present it in a way that has never existed and again it’s like it makes sense. You line up the whole category and it.
16:02.39
Andy
Which one of the same. Do you want um and you know I think we’ve we’ve dipped our toe into flavors like you said that mango chainsaw and severed lime and buried alive. Those have been super successful for us. Um, because we but because we built off of. This one differentiator which was still water in a can and that was the whole premise and from there the sparkling water and then from there the flavors. So um, yeah I mean we’re going to continue to March towards global domination. You know we want every we want every breverage to be a liquid death one day. Um. Because ah, there’s just there’s I think as you you see from the marketing side of things we are ah never at a loss for ideas and new ideas and so um I think this you know the sky’s a limit on on where we go I think that I think i. It’s it’s kind of up to us. That’s the exciting thing too just going back to the talk we have about but being on the brand side or client side is like building a startup. It’s all up to us on whether it’s amazing or whether it fizzles and so um, we’re kind of always overflowing with ideas and stuff that we want to do and um.
17:07.52
vigorbranding
I.
17:16.99
Andy
You know there’s definitely will be more to come um from that’s about ah that’s about us most I can say you know I mean yeah.
17:20.10
vigorbranding
Um, yeah, yeah, especially when no of course. Yeah, yeah, we don’t want trade seekers I mean I want trade secrets but um. But I think we’ll be good to explore too. Is you know the the listeners of the show. We. We have a lot of ah restaurant Leaders. We have a lot of food and beverage leaders that listen but we also have creatives that that you tune in um, can you tell me a little bit of how the adjustment from agency side to client side has gone.
17:37.92
Andy
Yep.
17:46.62
vigorbranding
And and how have you made sure that you don’t reach a point where you’re burnt out on the brand I think it’s the fear for a lot of ah creatives in jumping into a singular brand. How how do you fight that off and how do you maintain that energy.
17:55.25
Andy
Um, yeah, yeah I mean ah I would say it’s definitely not a problem here. Everything we do.
18:09.28
vigorbranding
Yeah.
18:12.65
Andy
Every single day I’m like wow that was the craziest day at liquid death ever. We had this conversation with this person and we’re going to do this and we’re launching this new product and I mean it is. It’s so wild I I remember I remember when I first started I was looking at our Instagram feed and I was like. Scrolling and I was like man this is a mess. It’s all over the place. It’s nothing is consistent and very quickly I realize is like oh that’s the whole point and my job here as kind of lead creative is to give everyone whiplash creative whiplash. That’s the fun part about liquid death. Is you.
18:39.25
vigorbranding
From.
18:49.93
Andy
Literally never know what we’re going to do next right? You the first time you see it. It’s this crazy experience of like what is this thing and then anytime we launch new marketing or a new social post or literally a new piece of Merch. It’s like wow I did not see that coming and so kind of in a world where all brands are trying to maintain. These like long-tailed marketing campaigns and try to have like parodity of voice and a consistency and all this stuff. We’re actively everything that we put out should be a full one eighty from the last thing that you saw and we’ve sometimes even made choices where there was. Something launching within you know a couple months of something else that was like kind of similar and we’re like all right Let’s change the whole the whole way. We’re going to shoot and edit this in the whole the whole execution of it just so that it doesn’t even come close to being like that other thing that we did um so yeah I mean it’s it’s. Every day is is pretty wild and I think um, the way that I’ve come to understand it more recently is in a world where everyone’s trying to build and maintain a brand I don’t think of liquid death so much as a brand as much as a. Ah character and what I mean by that is that if you’re writing for television. You have all these characters and you get to know the character very intimately and you throw them in new situations or they find themselves new situations and then you’re kind of asking.
20:25.40
Andy
What would the character do in that situation or given this new new input. How do they react or what little part of their personality is maybe revealed here that we didn’t really fully understand before and so I think like rather than having. Like we don’t have a brand book like it doesn’t exist because we just are like we’re not going to write it Even if we wrote it No one would read it. Um, so we’d rather like kind of just build build liquid death over time by these little pieces of content and putting out and.
20:47.50
vigorbranding
Um.
21:01.25
Andy
Giving giving it to people and have them you know collectively build what liquid death means um you know by the content they give back to us. But I really like to think of it it rather than me like you know our brand will do these things but it will never do this thing and our spirit animal is Jimmy Fallon and all this like so kind of bullshit marketing stuff. Like to think of it as a character and then it’s just it. It becomes much more exciting to like be like hey if we’re do a partnership with with this with ah this guitar brand like what would we do in that situation like where do we go with it rather than approaching it from such a a like a sterile point of like having a brand that we have to. Always maintain. Um and that’s kind of a really freeing thing I think to think about it that way.
21:44.30
vigorbranding
Yeah I mean preaching to acquire here. We we all know what a lot of how a lot of brands and brand managers manage their brands. It is very regimented. It is very and the way that we at Vigor have always thought about it is a little more like character driven where. I always make the correlation to a human you know I might wear in wintertime a leather jacket to a bar and the next night I might wear a suit depending on the place depending on that. That’s just a part of my unique personality and I think you know us as humans we aren’t well most of us are not.
22:03.65
Andy
Um.
22:14.98
Andy
Um.
22:22.86
vigorbranding
1 personality 1 way all the time we do have idiosyncrasies. We do have you know differentiators and things like that I mean even someone like Mike Tyson you know likes to play with pigeons you know so it’s like you know it’s it’s very different. So I love that way of thinking was there.
22:26.83
Andy
Yep.
22:36.14
Andy
You’re right.
22:42.12
vigorbranding
It sounds if I’m reading in between lies. It sounds like there was a bit and of adjustment coming from the agency to a world where it is newer or different thinking about brands compared to being an agency where you have this creative brief. This is our brand thou shall not step outside of it too far at least.
23:01.47
Andy
I don’t I wouldn’t say in an adjustment I think it was just um, if if anything it was like an opening of the world and I was like oh before I was just getting to getting to like pitch campaigns and write.
23:08.88
vigorbranding
M.
23:16.30
Andy
Tv spots and now it’s like oh wow I have all these other levers I can pull and like how do we approach merch as the most creative brand on the planet and build stuff that isn’t just slapping our logo on something but genuinely building a surprising conceptual piece of merch that that we want to sell out in an hour that we launch or. You know how do we make retail signage. Super fun and and surprising when you walk in a store. How do we? Um, you know there’s just there’s so many different things to play with and so many things on a personal level that I had to learn stepping into this role. Um, but but I but that was probably more the adjustment is. Realizing how little I knew and then perhaps gaining a little bit more appreciation for past clients I’ve had where they they they knew so much more and I was just this creative coming in pitching silly ideas that I had no concept of the rest of their business but the great thing here with liquid death is. We’re both agency and client simultaneously and so for us, it’s like we have we have an idea and we’re like cool. Let’s just go make that we don’t there’s no churn. There’s no presentations. We’re just like oh man I had this idea when I was coming in this morning. What if we did this and then we’re like love it. Let’s go make it and so that’s.
24:15.30
vigorbranding
And.
24:20.83
vigorbranding
The people.
24:32.56
Andy
Really how we operate is is this very fast turnover of ideas and um, you know wanting to make stuff that we want to make and not putting ourselves on any like timeline or wasting time and and energy and resources doing all the kind of you know. All the other stuff that happens around the act of just being creative in the first place.
24:55.41
vigorbranding
Yeah, and it sounds like Instagram is your is the the focus not the end. All be all but definitely a focal point and creating content on that platform. How have you? Um, how have you leveraged the push and pull between the feed stories. And reels and and how do you approach what content goes where how do you get the traction that you want to get on there because if that if you’re not paying for it. There’s obviously a lot of discussions around that data and and how do you optimize right.
25:24.39
Andy
Yeah, you know I think as I said we we push out so much stuff all the time that for us, it’s just sort of like well let’s test. It. Let’s see. Let’s see what this thing does and over time we’ve kind of developed a. Our own set of guidelines of understanding like oh this is the kind of thing and that’s going to Crush. These are the kind of things people are looking for and then a lot of it is also collaborating with um with you know artists and comedians and stuff that maybe other brands wouldn’t necessarily look look to work with but also are doing amazing stuff.
25:45.20
vigorbranding
Ah, in a man.
26:02.92
Andy
But you know someone may not want to may not think to go there with them or may not give them free reign to do what we would. You know what? what? we’d hand them the keys to so um, yeah I think like we’ve we’ve kind of just worked over time to figure out. Um.
26:22.35
Andy
You know at least like especially the in-feed stuff what what works the best for us. Um, and then also we’re we’re doing that over on the tiktok I mean we’re growing massively. We’re like two point seven million on Tiktok right now we’re one point two on Instagram we’re um, we’re we’re beating pretty much every.
26:24.94
vigorbranding
Are.
26:42.43
Andy
But look combined audience beating um, almost every other bridge writer out there and we’re three years old so it’s something’s working.
26:47.90
vigorbranding
Yeah, and that makes a bloody statement I mean it anyone who’s not paying attention should really perk up and pay attention because the theories and the idea and this this approach it’s It’s not like this has to be a lightning strike I mean it’s It’s really what. Many creatives many design thinkers and even Brand strategists have been pushing for is like stop doing what everyone else is doing we we’ve all here heard the adages. You know if you spend your time trying to fit In. You’re going to waste your budget trying to stand out and we see it over and over again though because that comfort Level. So I Love how uncomfortable from the very onset this brand.
27:12.80
Andy
Tab.
27:17.55
Andy
Right.
27:25.76
vigorbranding
Is but how perfect it has been and it’s imperfection. It’s irreverence and all that um so 2 more questions and I’ll let you get back to your day question number 1 What is the most favorite thing you’ve done with liquid death so far and I know it’s like trying to ask what your favorite child is but here I am asking it.
27:30.00
Andy
Yeah, yeah.
27:42.98
Andy
Oh man, oh god ah one of the things and it and it’s one of the smaller pieces we made got this really hard 1 of 1 of the things that I personally like the best just because the.
27:47.45
vigorbranding
Yeah.
27:59.48
Andy
Story behind it. A little bit is um, there was this guy on Tiktok who his whole his whole account was just him chugging a liquid death for 15 seconds straight every day and he was coming up on a year of doing that and that’s literally all it was you just sit there crack it. Song would play 15 seconds and he’s out and um it was coming up on like it was coming up to a year of him doing this and I’d I’d started relatively recently and we were like what are we going to do for this dude like he’s been doing it. And I we couldn’t figure out. We kind of kept pushing well like we’ll come up with something next week and then it literally got up on the date and we’re like fuck. Oh sorry shoot we ah we are we cross the bridge. Okay, cool sort of like fuck. We got to. We’re like fuck. We got to come up with something for this for this dude.
28:46.80
vigorbranding
Well no, we we hey we already have it. We’re good. We’re like way past that.
28:57.99
Andy
and and 1 thing that’s really cool about the brand is that it’s caught on so much that people get tattoos of our logo all over their body. We get stuff ah on a.
29:12.20
Andy
Weekly basis sometimes more more often than a weekly basis of someone that’s gotten it on their hand on their arm on like couple head tattoos like I mean it’s wild people are now getting low tattoos of our merch just like our merch art and stuff like that not beyond our logo. So it’s getting even more meta but it. And and we always give people like 1 guy that has on his head got water for life from us. We always give him water and we say thanks and but so we’re like man all these fans have been getting a tattoo of liquid death what if liquid death could get a fat tattoo of a fan for the first time and so I went to.
29:45.80
vigorbranding
A.
29:48.32
Andy
Went to Mike and I was like if this idea where we want you to get a tattoo of this dude’s face instead of the reverse and Mike has like has got sleeves you know, ah the whole deal. Um, and because I also like this idea because I was like there’s no other.
30:00.16
vigorbranding
Yeah.
30:07.68
Andy
Or very few other brands on the planet where the Ceo is like sure I’m going to get a tattoo that random dude’s face on my arm and um and Mike was like yeah, let’s do it and so two days later he’s in a he’s in his place getting it getting it. The whole thing done. He has this big ass. This random guy’s head on his arm.
30:22.84
vigorbranding
I Love it.
30:27.70
Andy
Just down here for the rest of his life and and we posted we made a little short video about it. You know it took two days to put together and and threw it out there and um I don’t know I just I think that’s like kind of emblematic of the way we like to think and then also I mean the the guy literally was like. We posted it and the guy was like I’m literally crying right now and I don’t know just it it like I think it’s the liquid death story for so many reasons because we have someone at the top who’s willing to go there with who who has driven us there. Ah with that and.
30:46.36
vigorbranding
Yeah.
31:02.10
Andy
Um, and on top of that like rewarding fans and making this really like interactive experience I think I think of us as a really interactive brand and then we went out and made this thing in a matter of 2 or 3 days and got out in the world and then it really meant something to the person that that we made it for and so I think there’s a lot of heart behind the brand too. That you know is hidden under all the humor and all the craziness and everything but I think it just kind of like really nicely encapsulates like what makes us us and so that’s that would be my very long-winded answer to your simple question.
31:34.93
vigorbranding
It’s a fantastic answer. Um I’m I’m jealous. We’ve only had 1 instance that I know of where a fan of a brand we were working on got a tattoo so we we only got an ankle tattoo out of it. So I think I need to rethink my goals and go I want a head tattoo.
31:47.56
Andy
Um, tattoo. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:50.71
vigorbranding
Yeah, get someone needs to get a head tattooed one of ah friends that we do, um that’s fantastic. Last question equally as hard if you had 1 final meal on this planet. What would you eat and wear and why.
32:04.27
Andy
Oh man, um I would probably be in a random plaza in San Sebastian Spain eating eating just whatever I’m grabbing off the pinchots that I’m grabbing off the bar. And ah, it’s like nine o’clock at night and kids are running around and we’re just eating this like the simplest like just most gorgeous food in the world in ah in a beautiful place. We went through my honeymoon and ah we managed to eat at they have that list of like you know the top 50.
32:39.10
vigorbranding
Yeah.
32:39.56
Andy
Restaurants the world and we managed to book we managed to get bookings at 3 of them ah in and around San Sebastian but it was all within a 36 hour period so one was like arzac the first night then muurites the second night and then extrachebari. Only had for lunch the next day so within 36 hours we ate at like 3 the top restaurants in the world and that night we both woke up like screaming in pain in our airbnb and we’re like we have gout. We’ve given ourselves gout by eating the fanciest.
33:13.21
vigorbranding
Ah, oh man.
33:14.25
Andy
Food in the world and like we let shit thought we’re gonna have to go to a hospital. Um, so my answer is that I would make keep it more simple. Just keep it at the random a random topest bar on the plots of somewhere but do that.
33:25.97
vigorbranding
I love it. Man. So ah, very much jealous for my Fortieth two years ago I was supposed to um, we my wife and I had planned to start in lower Spain outside of where my like part of my family’s originally from. And then work our way up through basque to sanibastion and then over to bordeaux and then ah maybe not come back. You know and instead I did a stake dinner here in Atlanta because the pandemic. So yeah, still on my list. Are you a Hemingway fan or just San Sebastian was on your list. Okay.
33:46.37
Andy
Ah, man.
33:50.84
Andy
Yeah, well, there’s still time. Do it. oh yeah oh I I was like a spanish major and I was like spanish major in college and I’ve I’ve been to Spain more than anywhere else in the world. You know, love it I tried to run across it one time.
34:01.30
vigorbranding
Wonderful. That’s not you know.
34:08.63
vigorbranding
Wonderful. Yeah I Just want to drive across it but all right man that was a fantastic answer. Hey thanks for all the insights. Thanks for sharing some time with us I Love the product I Love the brand I Love what you’re doing. Can’t say enough about it and yeah man. Um.
34:10.44
Andy
Yeah, it’s very silly.
34:16.96
Andy
Yeah.
34:25.50
Andy
Yeah, cheers.
34:25.60
vigorbranding
Until next time chairs.
