when i made this brand i didn't set out
to be like i'm gonna create something
that's gonna be worth a billion dollars
i was more like i want to create
something that's gonna make my friends
[Music]
laugh
most people get the humor instantly
we saw that all the unhealthy brands in
the world of marketing were doing all
the coolest
funniest most irreverent marketing so
we thought it would be interesting to
take the healthiest thing you can
possibly drink which is water
and one up the marketing of all the
unhealthy stuff
[Music]
this is mike cesario and he started
liquid death as an experiment
i knew that i had to basically test the
idea to prove that it was viable
for less than five thousand dollars he
successfully launched the brand
and within months became more popular
than billion dollar water companies
and he didn't even have a product yet i
think that's sort of when we knew
um yeah that we tapped into succulent
you just started your dream business how
much profit would you need to pay your
basic living expenses like rent
and ramen this is a show on the
economics of entrepreneurship
and founders turning their dreams into
reality this
is ramen profitable
mike cesario is an ex-creative director
for brands such as netflix
nestle and apple but for an ad man he's
got an unlikely opinion of the work
i just hate marketing like all of it's
so terrible
i never totally fit like the corporate
advertising world
i always wanted to do really interesting
cool things but most clients do not want
to do
interesting cool things so mike decided
to create his own product
a sustainable canned water company
called liquid death
that would be marketed on the same level
as unhealthy beverages
part of the reason it's called liquid
death is because we're trying to bring
death to plastic bottles because most
plastic
isn't actually recyclable so we designed
a can
we shot a fifteen hundred dollar funny
video
and we made a facebook page put a couple
thousand dollars in paid media
just to kind of spark the fire four
months later
the videos got three million views the
page has more followers than aquafina
we did better with social media with
three thousand dollars then
how much did they spend to get to where
they got
we had something that maybe was magic we
use
all of that to then actually go raise a
small round of funding to actually
make the product in january of 2019
they sold their first can online and
almost immediately they were selling out
on amazon
and their website but mike realized
there was a problem the internet is
tough
in terms of business model because
beverages are heavy
and heavy stuff is expensive to ship it
ultimately needs to go to retail
like when someone's thirsty they're not
going to log on the internet and wait
five days to get that water it's like no
you want to be able to go into a store
and buy it
selling water called liquid death to
retailers turned out to be
pretty hard the name always makes people
nervous especially like retail buyers
liquid death like i don't know like
they're just not used to anything that's
not coke or pepsi but one area they
found success in was bars and clubs
there were bars that were like yeah this
is never gonna work i've never sold a
bottle of water in here we've tried
cut to a month later they're like oh i
moved through five cases a week of this
whole foods was like the first major
breakthrough for liquid death like
that's what really propelled the brand
they saw liquid death and they're like
we don't have anything else in our store
like this
you know the fact that it's infinitely
recyclable we give ten percent of the
profits to help clean up plastic from
the ocean
we're getting into target now publix
albertson safeway i mean the floodgates
have sort of opened
and uh that's about it
this is my friend mr duck he guards the
van
when i leave he never lets up his eyes
are actually always open too it's pretty
impressive
how's everything going jerry you good in
beverage
velocity is one of the most important
metrics and that's basically
how quickly are people pulling it off
the shelf
higher velocity means more stores and
more shelf space
it does get capital intensive in retail
which is why it's really hard to beat
the big guys
as a small upcoming brand but like in a
category where the playing field is very
level
in terms of the liquid it's all about
brand at that point
join us and liquid death in our mission
to bring death to plastic bottles
what we do like it seems like oh they're
just edgy but it's actually like
it's a very fine line that we walk where
five degrees this way
it's totally lame it's not cool it's not
funny
five degrees this way it's too
distasteful and people just won't
react to it or laugh at it
our only chance at survival is to be
able to punch way above our weight when
it comes to like an awareness and
marketing standpoint
if we just get our cans in people's
hands and
a couple people talk to them just
because they're walking around with it
that's way easier to get them as a fan
versus blowing a million dollars on a tv
commercial
to come up with truly innovative ideas
you basically have to trick your brain
to do something that it thinks is a bad
idea
your brain is so programmed to do the
things that seen a million times before
that most of the ideas you come up with
like it's already been done a million
times or it's not actually innovative
because it makes too much sense
almost always some of the best ideas
come from unexpected places
liquid death is now the most popular
water brand on social media
and its cans are now carried in 16 000
locations throughout the us
and for mike entrepreneurship was giving
him the creative autonomy he had always
dreamed of
the thing that i've always wanted to do
is just put my money where my mouth is
in those board rooms where i had to try
to convince big companies to
do the cool thing that they're like no
we're not gonna do that
now it's all on me like there's no one
stopping us
from doing like world-changing marketing
like we can do whatever we want it's up
to us
i mean i have people like when i'll be
driving like ask me to roll down my
window do you have any shirts
i mean i ideally i would like to throw
one through their window but
that's not good can't be doing that