BUSI 520 Week 8 MMGP: Research Paper Final Submission Example

Liquid Death Mountain Water: A Strategic Marketing Analysis and Recommendations

Introduction

This report presents our group's strategic marketing analysis of Liquid Death, a beverage company that sells mountain water, sparkling water, flavored drinks and iced teas in aluminum cans branded with heavy metal and punk imagery. The purpose of the project was to apply the marketing management framework of Kotler and Keller (2016) to a single product from its history through its promotion, and to recommend changes based on that analysis.

We chose Liquid Death because it is an unusual subject: its product is a commodity. Water offers buyers no functional reason to prefer one brand, so nearly all of the company's value comes from marketing. Our thesis is that Liquid Death has turned a commodity into an identity product, and that its next stage of growth depends on reaching mainstream buyers without losing the meaning that justifies its price. Each of the five content sections began as an individual member's paper and was revised for this report so that facts appear once and the sections build on one another. The sections that follow examine the company's background, its market and segments, its positioning and branding, its services and pricing, and its promotions and social responsibility, and the final section sets out our recommendations.

Background Information

Mike Cessario, who had worked as an advertising creative, founded Liquid Death after noticing that musicians at a punk touring festival poured water into energy drink cans to satisfy a sponsor (Clark, 2025; Kirichanskaya, 2024). The observation suggested that water could be sold with the attitude normally reserved for energy drinks and beer. The trademark application followed in 2017, and before a single can was sold the company tested demand with an inexpensive online video whose popularity helped attract seed funding (Clark, 2025).

Sales began online in 2019 and moved quickly into retail, with Whole Foods Market as an early national partner and Live Nation as the exclusive water supplier at its concerts and festivals (Clark, 2025). Growth was rapid. Scanned retail sales for 2023 came to $263 million, the third straight year in which sales had more than doubled, and distribution in more than 113,000 stores across the United States and the United Kingdom, and a $67 million round in March 2024 valued the company at $1.4 billion (Kirichanskaya, 2024). Retail sales reached about $333 million in 2024, but growth slowed to about 27 percent, and the company has since widened its line to include an electrolyte mix, soda-style sparkling waters and an energy drink (Clark, 2025).

The product line now spans several categories. The original still and sparkling waters come in 12-, 16.9- and 19.2-ounce cans; the flavored sparkling line runs to puns on violent deaths; iced teas include Grim Leafer and Rest in Peach; and the Death Dust electrolyte mix and the newer soda-style and energy drinks extend the brand into further occasions (Clark, 2025; Kirichanskaya, 2024). Every product shares the same visual identity and humor, which keeps a widening line recognizable as one brand even as it moves into categories with very different competitors and buyers.

The history matters for the analysis because it shows a brand whose marketing preceded its product. Holt (2004) argued that iconic brands earn their status by offering myths that ease anxieties running through a society, and Liquid Death's story, a healthy product dressed in the clothes of rebellion, speaks to young consumers who want to be healthy without being earnest about it.

Market Analysis

Because water is functionally identical across brands, consumers' choices are driven by the cultural, social and personal factors Kotler and Keller (2016) describe. Liquid Death competes at the cultural and social levels. Research on identity explains the mechanism. Escalas and Bettman (2005) showed that consumers connect with brands whose users resemble groups they belong to or want to join, and Berger and Heath (2007) found that people use choices in identity-relevant domains to signal who they are. Liquid Death has made water an identity-relevant product. Fournier (1998) argued that consumers form relationships with brands much as they do with people, and the brand's audience appears to relate to it as a companion with a personality rather than a supplier.

The buying process for the product is short and mostly habitual, which raises the stakes of the first purchase. Kotler and Keller (2016) describe a five-stage process that runs from noticing a need through searching, comparing options and choosing to the feelings that follow the purchase, and for a cold drink most of that sequence happens in seconds in front of a cooler. A brand that is not already in the buyer's mind, or not instantly recognizable on the shelf, is rarely chosen. Liquid Death's online content does much of the information-search work before the buyer reaches the store, and the can does the rest. For buyers in the core segments, the evaluation of alternatives is less about taste or price than about what the drink says about them, which is why the brand's identity carries so much weight.

Wedel and Kamakura (2000) list criteria for useful segments, including identifiability, substantiality, accessibility, stability, responsiveness and actionability. Applying those criteria and the segmentation bases in Kotler and Keller (2016), our group identified four segments. The first is young adults attached to music, skate and alternative culture, the brand's original base. The second is people in social settings, concerts, bars and festivals, who want a non-alcoholic drink that fits the occasion. The third is shoppers trying to avoid plastic packaging. The fourth is mainstream convenience shoppers reached through mass retail.

The second segment is the most attractive for growth. Pape et al. (2018) reviewed international evidence that adolescent drinking has declined substantially in many countries since the early 2000s, which implies a growing share of young adults who want something to drink at social events without alcohol. The first segment fits best but is largely captured already. The third is crowded with sustainability brands and sensitive to doubts about the brand's environmental claim. The fourth offers the most buyers yet matches the brand least, because those buyers decide mainly on price and convenience. Smith (1956) presented segmentation as a way of shaping an offering around the wants of particular groups, an alternative to fighting over an entire market with price, and that logic favors the segments that prize the brand's meaning.

Business buyers stand between the company and every consumer. Distributors, retailers and venue operators judge the brand by its sales per store and its margins, and their support is a precondition for reaching any of the four segments. The participation of major distributors in the company's 2024 financing suggests that these buyers have been persuaded so far (Kirichanskaya, 2024). Their continued support will depend on whether the brand keeps turning over faster than the established waters it displaces, which is a harder test once early novelty has faded and the brand's sales growth has slowed from its first years' pace.

Positioning, Competition and Branding

Kotler and Keller (2016) begin positioning with a competitive frame of reference, and Liquid Death's frame changes with the setting. In a grocery aisle it competes with other waters; at a festival its rivals are the beer, hard seltzer and energy drinks sold at the next stand. To qualify as water at all it must match rivals on purity, safety and convenience, its points of parity, while its points of difference are humor, a heavy metal identity, a can designed for social settings and an anti-plastic stance. Our positioning statement reads: for young adults who want something to hold at a show or a bar that is neither alcohol nor sugar, Liquid Death is the water that lets them belong, because it wraps plain mountain water in the look and humor of the music scenes they care about.

We grouped competitors into four sets: premium still waters such as Fiji and Coca-Cola's Smartwater; sparkling waters such as LaCroix and Coca-Cola's Topo Chico; smaller look-alike canned waters; and the alcoholic and energy drinks the brand replaces in social settings. The look-alikes compete most directly on the brand's points of difference, and the large beverage companies have the resources to launch a credible imitator.

The brand's elements, its name, skull logo, gothic lettering, tallboy can and the slogan "murder your thirst," are memorable and protectable, though less transferable to mainstream audiences. Aaker (1997) identified five dimensions of brand personality, and Liquid Death leans hard into the exciting and rugged dimensions while all but ignoring sophistication, the dimension premium waters court. Its fans also behave like a brand community in the sense described by Muniz and O'Guinn (2001), sharing a consciousness of kind, rituals and traditions, as the rapid sellout of a cosmetics collaboration suggests (Kirichanskaya, 2024).

In our judgment, the gravest threat would come from one of the large beverage companies combining its distribution reach with a credible imitation of the brand's attitude. Smaller imitators have copied the can format without matching the scale or following, but a major company could place an imitator in every cooler the brand now occupies and fund it through years of losses. Liquid Death's defense in that scenario would rest on the depth of its fans' attachment and on how firmly its visual assets are linked to its name.

Two research traditions offer different advice about how the brand should defend its position. Keller (1993) located brand equity in strong, favorable and unique associations, which argues for protecting the brand's distinctive meaning. Sharp (2010) argued that brands grow mainly by gaining more buyers rather than more loyalty from existing buyers, and that they do so by building mental and physical availability through distinctive assets. Romaniuk and Sharp (2004) emphasized brand salience, the likelihood that a brand comes to mind in buying situations. The two views converge on one practical point: Liquid Death's visual assets, the skull and the tallboy can, are its most valuable property, because they carry its meaning to buyers who have never seen its content.

Services and Pricing

For a packaged beverage, the most important support services go to business buyers: reliable supply and logistics for distributors, merchandising and sales data for retailers, and products and branding suited to venues. Consumer-facing services include the online store, merchandise and limited editions. Vargo and Lusch (2004) argued that value is co-created with customers and that goods are vehicles for service; for Liquid Death, much of the service is entertainment that makes buying the product part of a shared joke.

The brand's price per ounce sits well above mainstream and store-brand water, closer to premium sparkling waters and soft drinks, and at venues it sells for several times its grocery price. Taking the textbook's pricing sequence one step at a time (Kotler & Keller, 2016), we concluded that the company pursues a premium objective with value-based pricing. Demand among the core segments is relatively insensitive to price because buyers are purchasing identity and occasion. Zeithaml (1988) showed that consumers perceive value as a trade-off between what they get, including intangible benefits such as image, and what they give up. Our estimate, without access to company cost data, is that cans and freight make each unit costlier to produce and move than bottled water in plastic, and the price must also fund trade margins and a substantial marketing program.

Research suggests that a high price can help create the experience it charges for. Rao and Monroe (1989) found that price serves as a cue to quality, particularly when quality is hard to judge, as it is with water. Plassmann et al. (2008) found that people reported greater enjoyment of the same wine when told it was more expensive, with corresponding differences in brain activity associated with experienced pleasantness. The main risks to the premium are mainstream shoppers who weigh it against the cheapest bottle in the cooler, look-alike competitors and any fading of the brand's cultural edge. Kotler and Keller (2016) caution that frequent price promotions train buyers to wait for discounts, which argues for using new flavors and limited editions rather than discounts to create excitement.

Channel differences shape pricing as much as brand does. At a festival the buyer's comparison is a beer or an energy drink, not a case of water, and the venue sets the price; on a grocery shelf the premium has to survive direct comparison with cheaper bottles beside it. Holding the grocery price steady while letting venues price to their own settings allows the brand to earn the most where its meaning is strongest without appearing out of place where its meaning is least known.

The company's newer products raise a related question. Völckner and Sattler (2006) found that fit between parent brand and extension is the strongest driver of extension success, and Aaker and Keller (1990) showed that a parent brand's perceived quality transfers mainly when the extension fits. Iced teas and sparkling flavors fit the brand's occasions; an energy drink fits its attitude but places it in a category dominated by large competitors with deep pockets, where the brand's price premium will be harder to defend.

Promotions and Socially Responsible Marketing

Liquid Death uses most of the communication modes in Kotler and Keller (2016), but its weight falls on online and social media, events and publicity. Its content is built for sharing, and its concert partnership puts the product in fans' hands at the moments the brand is designed for. Berger and Milkman (2012), studying which newspaper articles readers e-mailed to others, found that stories that stirred strong, activating feelings traveled furthest, and the brand's humor fits that finding. Trusov et al. (2009) showed that word-of-mouth referrals produced longer-lasting and stronger effects on customer acquisition than traditional marketing on a social networking site. Lamberton and Stephen (2016), reviewing fifteen years of research on digital, social media and mobile marketing, traced the field's shift toward consumers' own expression and sharing as the core of digital marketing. Liquid Death's communications rely on exactly that shift. Shock is part of the formula; In tests with university students, Dahl et al. (2003) found that deliberately offensive ads were noticed and remembered better than fear or information appeals.

The brand's socially responsible marketing rests on its anti-plastic message. Aluminum can be recycled repeatedly, but the environmental comparison with plastic depends on production, transport and actual recycling. The Federal Trade Commission's Green Guides caution against broad, unqualified environmental claims and call for recyclability claims to be qualified where recycling is not widely available (Federal Trade Commission, 2012). Delmas and Burbano (2011) describe greenwashing as positive communication about weak environmental performance, often through vague claims. Research also shows that green claims can help or hurt. Olsen et al. (2014) found that introducing green new products can improve brand attitude, with effects that depend on how the claim is framed, while Luchs et al. (2010) found that consumers sometimes see sustainable products as weaker on strength-related attributes, a liability Liquid Death's aggressive branding may help offset. White et al. (2019) identified social influence, habits, self-concept, feelings and tangibility as levers that encourage sustainable consumption, and the brand's identity-based appeal uses several of them.

The brand's dark humor raises a second responsibility question, since social platforms and stores reach children as well as the adults the content is designed for. Water is a healthy product, but humor about death and violence is not obviously suitable for every audience it reaches. Kotler and Keller (2016) treat social responsibility as part of holistic marketing, which includes considering everyone a firm's marketing touches, not only its intended customers. Our assessment is that the brand's environmental claim is plausible but under-documented, and that its humor is appropriate for its adult audience but needs clearer boundaries on platforms where children are a large share of viewers. Neither concern threatens the brand today; both could become serious if a critic or regulator chose to press them.

Measuring the communications program is the last gap our group found. A brand that relies on earned attention can track shares, comments and follower growth easily, but those numbers do not show whether content moves product off shelves. Kotler and Keller (2016) recommend linking communication measures to sales outcomes wherever possible. For Liquid Death, that could mean comparing store sales in markets before and after major content releases, or matching venue sales to the timing of festival activations. The company's growth has made such measurement less urgent than it will become; as growth slows, the question of which activities actually sell cans will matter more, and a brand that has measured carefully will know which parts of its formula to protect.

Recommendations and Conclusions

Our analysis supports six recommendations, three strategic and three operational.

First, the company should make its environmental claims specific and verifiable. The anti-plastic message is central to the brand, but in its current general form it is exposed to the kind of criticism the Green Guides and the greenwashing literature describe. Publishing the recycled content of its cans, the results of any lifecycle comparison with plastic bottles and its own progress targets would turn a slogan into evidence. Success could be measured by the share of packaging and web pages carrying specific claims and by tracking consumer trust in the claim.

Second, the company should treat the social-occasion segment as its main growth market. The decline in youth drinking documented by Pape et al. (2018) points to a growing population of young adults who want a non-alcoholic drink at concerts, bars and parties, and that is the setting where the brand's can and attitude are most valuable and its premium is easiest to defend. Practical steps include expanding venue partnerships beyond concerts to bars, sports venues and campus events, and tracking venue sales separately from grocery sales.

Third, the company should build a distinctive-assets program for mass retail. Sharp (2010) and Romaniuk and Sharp (2004) argue that growth comes largely from reaching more buyers and from being easy to notice and recall when buying. In supermarkets and convenience stores, most shoppers have not seen the brand's videos, so the skull, the tallboy shape and the color palette must do the selling. Consistent shelf blocks, secondary displays in cold cases and packaging that shows the brand's assets clearly would build mental and physical availability without diluting its meaning.

Fourth, operationally, the company should protect its price in core channels and avoid deep discounting. The research on price as a quality cue (Rao & Monroe, 1989) and on price affecting enjoyment (Plassmann et al., 2008) suggests that discounting could weaken the very experience the brand sells. Limited editions, collaborations and seasonal flavors can create excitement instead.

Fifth, the company should apply a fit test before further extensions. The evidence from Völckner and Sattler (2006) suggests that extensions succeed when they fit the parent brand's associations and occasions. The energy drink should be watched closely, with clear thresholds for continuing, since it competes in a category where the brand's points of difference are less distinctive and its rivals are far larger.

Sixth, the company should publish content guidelines for platforms with young audiences. The brand's humor is part of its value, but adopting and disclosing limits on violent content where children are a large share of viewers would reduce reputational risk at little creative cost.

In conclusion, Liquid Death shows how marketing can create value where the product itself offers none to differentiate. The company identified an identity-hungry audience, positioned water against beer and energy drinks rather than other waters, built a brand with a strong personality and a real community, priced it on value and promoted it through content its fans spread for free. Its challenge now is scale. Growth has slowed as the brand has moved into mass retail, competitors can copy its format, and its environmental message invites scrutiny. Our recommendations aim to help the company grow where its meaning is strongest, carry that meaning to new buyers through its visual assets, and back its claims with evidence. If it does so, Liquid Death can remain what our thesis described, a commodity successfully turned into an identity, without losing the attitude that made it worth buying in the first place.

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