Latest / The Marketing Funnel Podcast with Fexingo: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action Stages / How Liquid Death Built a Marketing Funnel on Irreverence
Transcript
- Lucas: Okay, I want to start with a question that sounds like a setup for a joke but isn't: What does a water company have in common with a heavy metal band? Luna: I'm going to guess the answer is 'nothing, unless it's Liquid Death.' Lucas: Exactly. Liquid Death — the canned water brand currently valued at roughly one point four billion dollars — has built one of the most talked-about marketing funnels of the last five years. And they did it by treating a commodity product like a rock concert. Luna: So the product is literally just water in an aluminum can. No sugar, no flavor, no functional benefit. How do you build a funnel around that? Lucas: That's the puzzle. And the answer starts with awareness — the top of the funnel. Liquid Death's founding insight was that people don't share 'boring water' on social media. But they will share something that looks like a joke or a rebellion. So the awareness stage wasn't about 'try our crisp, refreshing water.' It was about 'murder your thirst.' Luna: Right, the entire brand voice is built on absurdity. The product names are things like 'Severed Lime' and 'Mango Chainsaw.' The tagline is 'Death to Plastic.' Lucas: And that voice is the engine of the entire funnel. At the top, it generates massive organic reach. Their most famous awareness play was the 'funeral for a water bottle' — a live-streamed burial of a plastic bottle with a tiny coffin, eulogies, the whole thing. That single piece of content got over three million views on YouTube. No paid media behind it. Luna: Three million views for a water brand. That's insane. But I wonder — does that kind of irreverence create genuine interest, or is it just a one-time laugh? Lucas: This is where their funnel gets interesting. Liquid Death understood that interest — the second stage of AIDA — requires more than just a funny video. You need to give people a reason to want more. So they turned the brand into a content and merch engine. They sell limited-edition T-shirts, hoodies, even a coffin-shaped cooler. The merch drops are timed, scarce, and aggressively marketed through the same dark humor. Luna: So the interest stage is really about building a cultural identity. You're not just interested in water — you're interested in being part of this inside joke. Lucas: Exactly. And the data backs it up. According to the company, their email open rates are well above industry average — in the forty to fifty percent range — because subscribers actually want to see what absurd thing they'll say next. The interest is sustained by the personality, not the product. Luna: That's clever. But what about the decision stage? At some point, you have to convert that interest into a purchase. How does a brand built on jokes get someone to actually buy water? Lucas: This is the part I find most impressive. Liquid Death uses a direct to consumer model with a subscription option, but they don't push it hard. Instead, they make the decision stage feel like a natural extension of the community. For example, they offer a 'lifetime warranty' on their aluminum bottles — which is absurd because a bottle is a bottle — but it signals that buying from them is a vote for something. Every purchase reinforces the 'death to plastic' mission. Luna: So the decision is framed as a value-aligned choice, not a commodity purchase. That's smart, but it's also risky — what if the mission feels hollow? Lucas: That's the tightrope they walk. But they've been remarkably consistent. The founder, Mike Cessario, came from a creative agency background, and he's said in interviews that the brand voice is non-negotiable. Every touchpoint — from the website copy to the shipping box — has that same tone. And it works. Their reported conversion rate on the website is around twenty-seven percent, which is extremely high for a low-consideration product like water. Luna: Twenty-seven percent? That's more than double what most e-commerce sites see, which is typically around two to three percent. Lucas: Exactly. And the action stage — the final A — is where they really lock in loyalty. Liquid Death encourages customers to create their own content. They have a user-generated content program called 'Death Ads' where fans make their own ads for the brand. The best ones get featured on Liquid Death's social channels. It turns customers into creators, which feeds back into the awareness stage. Luna: So the funnel is actually a loop. Awareness drives interest, interest drives decision, decision drives action, and action generates new awareness through UGC. That's elegant. Lucas: It is. And it's a model that many brands have tried to replicate, but few have succeeded at. The reason, I think, is that Liquid Death's funnel isn't just a set of tactics — it's a worldview. The irreverence isn't a layer on top of the product; it is the product. The water is secondary to the identity. Luna: That raises the question: can this work for a non-commodity product? Or is it uniquely suited to a category where the product itself is boring? Lucas: I'd argue it can work for any brand that's willing to be genuinely polarizing. But most brands aren't. They want to be liked by everyone, which leads to vanilla messaging. Liquid Death deliberately courts a certain audience and is fine alienating the rest. That's a hard sell in most boardrooms. Luna: We should note that the show is supported by listeners like you. If today's episode was useful to you and you want to keep it ad-free, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo helps. Lucas: Yeah, it really does. A handful of people chipping in keeps the conversations going without any sponsor influence. Appreciate anyone who does. Luna: So back to Liquid Death — they recently launched a line of iced tea and a flavored sparkling water. Are those extensions going to dilute the funnel? Lucas: I think it's a calculated risk. The new products still fit the brand voice — they're called things like 'Dead Billionaires' for the iced tea — but the category expansion means they're competing with bigger players who have much larger ad budgets. The funnel will need to evolve because the decision stage becomes more complicated when there are more options. Luna: And the awareness stage might need to shift too. If you're selling iced tea, you're no longer just the 'funny water brand.' You're now in the ready to drink tea aisle, which is dominated by brands like Lipton and Arizona. Lucas: Right. And that's the challenge of scaling an irreverent funnel. The irreverence works incredibly well when you're a small, insurgent brand. But as you grow, the pressure to appeal to a broader audience increases. Liquid Death is at a crossroads where they have to decide whether to stay niche and profitable, or go mass and risk losing what made them special. Luna: Are there any parallels you see with other brands that have tried this? I'm thinking of something like Dollar Shave Club, which also used humor to build a funnel, but eventually got acquired and lost its edge. Lucas: That's a great comparison. Dollar Shave Club's early ads were hilarious — the 'Our Blades Are F*ing Great' video went viral. But after Unilever acquired them, the tone softened, and the funnel became more conventional. Liquid Death is still independent, so they have more control, but the temptation to 'professionalize' the marketing as you scale is real. Luna: So the question becomes: can Liquid Death maintain its voice while growing revenue from what is reportedly around one hundred million dollars annually to, say, five hundred million? Lucas: That's the billion-dollar question — literally. And it's not just about voice. It's about the entire funnel infrastructure. The awareness stage currently relies heavily on organic virality. As the brand gets bigger, organic reach tends to decline because the novelty fades. They'll need to invest in paid acquisition, which can feel like selling out if not done carefully. Luna: They could also leverage partnerships. I saw they collaborated with a band called Ghost on a limited-edition can. That's smart — it keeps the cultural connection without feeling like an ad. Lucas: Exactly. Those kinds of collaborations are a way to inject new energy into the awareness stage without breaking character. They've also done partnerships with comedians and other musicians. It's a playbook that keeps the funnel fresh. Luna: One thing I find interesting is how they handle the interest stage as they add SKUs. With more products, the website becomes more complex. Do they risk overwhelming the visitor? Lucas: They've managed it well so far. The website still feels minimal and punchy. The product pages use the same copy style — 'Sparkling water that will make your mouth feel like a party, but not a party where you wake up in a dumpster.' It's consistent. But as the number of products grows, maintaining that consistency becomes harder. Luna: Let's talk about the action stage more concretely. They have a subscription model, but they also sell through retailers like Whole Foods and Target. How does that affect the funnel? Lucas: Retail distribution changes the action stage significantly. When you buy Liquid Death at Whole Foods, you're not going through their carefully crafted website funnel. You're making a split-second decision in a cold aisle. So the brand has to do all the funnel work before you walk into the store — through social, through merch, through word of mouth. The purchase is just the final step. Luna: That means the awareness and interest stages have to be incredibly strong to drive retail sales, because at the point of sale, there's no brand voice except the can design itself. Lucas: Exactly. And their can design is actually a huge asset. It looks nothing like a typical water bottle. It's tall, black, and has a skull on it. In a sea of blue and green plastic bottles, it stands out visually. That's a form of in-store awareness that costs nothing beyond the initial design. Luna: So the funnel is really a multi-channel system. The digital funnel drives consideration, and the physical distribution captures the impulse buy. Lucas: Right. And that's a model that many DTC brands have struggled with — they build a great online funnel but fail to translate it to retail. Liquid Death seems to have cracked it, partly because the brand is so visually distinct. Luna: What about the metrics? How do they measure success at each stage? I'd imagine awareness is easy — views and impressions. But interest and decision are harder. Lucas: They've been surprisingly transparent about some metrics. For interest, they track email sign-ups and merch page visits. For decision, they look at conversion rate and average order value. And for action, they track subscription renewal rates and UGC submissions. They've claimed that their subscription retention rate is over ninety percent, which is outstanding for a CPG brand. Luna: Ninety percent retention? That's more typical of a SaaS product than a beverage. That suggests the action stage is really sticky. Lucas: It does. And I think it comes back to the community aspect. People don't feel like they're just buying water; they feel like they're supporting a movement. That emotional connection is what drives retention. Luna: So if a marketer wanted to steal one idea from Liquid Death's funnel, what should it be? Lucas: I would say: define a brand voice so sharp that it does the work of an entire marketing team. Liquid Death's voice is the thing that generates awareness, sustains interest, frames the decision, and motivates action. Everything else — the products, the distribution, the campaigns — is secondary. If you can create a voice that people want to share, you've built a funnel that runs on its own momentum. Luna: That's a good note to end on. Next episode we're going to look at a brand that tried the opposite approach: a completely serious, data-driven funnel. Spoiler: it didn't work. Lucas: Looking forward to that. For now, if today's conversation was worth a coffee, you know the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Thanks for listening.