We Need to Talk About Social Media Catfights. It Might Screw Your Brand.

The founder of Liquid Death was having an online moment. Not a good one either. At least, it didn't look that way. Large accounts were calling for the FTC to investigate. Well known advertising "gurus" wrote about being slack-jawed while following the exchange. How could the best challenger CPG brand be screwing up this way?

The truth is somewhere hidden in the details.

To recap, the founder went on a podcast to debate plastic being used in their cans. The interviewer asked something about donating 10% of sales and shenanigans occurred from there. Now there is an all-out war of words on X between the interviewer and LD's CEO and, well, it should stop.

The interviewer claims Liquid Death has been lying about donating "10% of profits" to charity. However, the astute reader will see the word "profits" and realize this an accounting term. Profits are at the bottom of the income statement. Revenue is what the company brings in after selling a product. Profit is what the company keeps after paying for operating costs and taxes. You can't pay 10% of anything if you aren't making a profit. Liquid Death changed this line to "portion of the proceeds" a while back.

The astute reader will also realize most people won’t dig for these details. So the interviewer went on X and hammered the 10% of profits line over and over again. The CEO responded, it’s gone back and forth, and now it’s gone on too long. The interviewer using it as a moment to advertise his own new water brand is a nice touch. Challenge the challenger brand.

Liquid Death is a niche branding machine. The company understands their target customer; interests, demographics, psychographics, all of the above. The art is top notch. Their commercials are comical. Let me be clear though, the company is built around a brand. And they are really great at getting their brand in front of the people who will love it. This is the definition of a great challenger brand.

There are now threats of contacting the FTC by the interviewer. I have strong opinions about this. Those are for another day. People enjoy bullies only for so long.

My first thought after thinking about this is Liquid Death should stop tweeting, take a step back, remember their purpose, and come back swinging. This is what challenger brands do to win. And they are the best one in the CPG market right now. But they have built an incredible amount of market share on their brand alone. Is it long term sustainable? I don't know. I would not be surprised if one of the big beverage companies bought them out. Grabbing shelf space in grocery stores is not an easy business.

Maybe they should do an advertising campaign renaming themselves Illiquid Death. Could be a fun idea.