Marketing the Macabre
Liquid Death’s Daring Ascent
At first glance, not much about 42-year-old Mike Cessario stands out. Like many in his generation, he’s heavily tattooed and likes to wear band T-shirts — far from outrageous by 2025 standards. He would blend into the crowd at any major rock concert in the country. Depending on your age or sensibilities, you’re likely to either pass him on the street without giving him much thought or walk to the other side to avoid him. Either way, your preconceptions would be wrong — dead wrong. He’s the man behind Liquid Death, a name you’ve likely seen on your supermarket shelves. Although you’d expect someone with his aesthetics to fill his company’s aluminum cans with alcohol, he’s made a fortune by selling good old-fashioned … water?!
and a water company,” he said in a 2022 interview with CNBC. “We want to actually entertain people [and] make them laugh in service of a brand. And if you can do that, they’re going to love your brand because you’re giving them something of value. You’re actually making them laugh.” The Brain Behind the Brand Cessario had already mastered the art of millennial- focused marketing long before Liquid Death dominated the field. In addition to collaborating with influencers Steve-O (“Jackass”) and Travis Barker (Blink-182), his viral promotion skills helped drive the success of the Netflix shows “House of Cards” and “Stranger Things.” Unsurprisingly, he embraced social media upon Liquid Death’s arrival and boasts 6.3 million followers on TikTok and 4 million on Instagram as of October 2024. Not bad for someone who readily admits his upward climb has resulted mainly from choosing what he describes as “the dumbest possible name” for a safe and healthy beverage.
Murdering Thirst — and the Marketplace Equal parts Warren Buffett and P.T. Barnum, Cessario has revolutionized the beverage industry by adhering to the philosophy that the best way to someone’s wallet is through their eyes. With its provocative, skull-emblazed cans and promise to “murder your thirst,” Liquid Death has exceeded expectations of what a water company can achieve. It has grown from a cheeky concept to a $1.4 billion business in just five years, proving that just about anything will sell if given the right spin. After all, there’s nothing
One of the biggest success stories of the last half-decade, Cessario is poised to expand Liquid Death beyond what we’ve already seen from this innocuous product with the incendiary name. As he told CNBC, “If someone I knew saw [one of our cans] in a store, I’m pretty sure they’re going to have to pick that up and be like, ‘What is this?’ And once someone picks something up, you’ve basically won.”
inherently chic about a can of H2O — a fact that Cessario was keenly aware of when he rolled the dice on making hydration hip.
“At the end of the day, we’re really creating an entertainment company
2 | (410) 832-0000 | jwyatt@harrisonlawgroup.com
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