Despite reaching unicorn status last month, Marina del Rey-based Liquid Death, known for its edgy drink branding, now faces the challenge of fighting for more space on retail shelves as it launches new products. 

Last month Liquid Death announced a $67 million financing round, pushing the company to a $1.4 billion valuation. 

While reaching that milestone in this tight capital markets environment was a feat in itself, founder and chief executive Mike Cessario says the real test is increasing the brand’s presence and availability in retail outlets. 

“Retail as a beverage company – it’s a really hard game that you’re playing,” he said.

The Science-incubated branding experiment has proved that its melting skull and gothic logo tallboys can stick out to shoppers. Indeed, its retail sales grew from $110 million in 2022 to $263 million last year alone. 

According to SPINS, a retail product software platform, Liquid Death is now the fastest-growing water and iced tea brand in the country. 

Liquid Death’s latest funding will go towards further product innovation, including its recent expansion into sparkling water, electrolyte and iced tea offerings. 

Liquid Death keeps its brand name at the top of these new products. It’s a large bet on its own brand power, squaring up against legacy players in these areas such as Gatorade, Arizona Iced Tea and Perrier, which already have household-name status. 

As of last year, Liquid Death was available in 113,000 retail stores, including Target, Walmart and Whole Foods, in the U.S. and U.K.

Liquid Death has a vendor-central account with Amazon, meaning the ecommerce giant serves as a wholesale supplier for the company. Its consistent sales growth over the past few years show customers are choosing its products for purchase off the shelf, but Liquid Death is still short of profitability. 

The first quarters of the year serve as “retail resets,” when chains assess what product inventory will make the cut and where items will be placed in stores. It’s at this moment, Cessario says, that his national sales team has to make sure the Liquid Death skulls face everyone from bodega customers in New York to family shoppers in Illinois grocery stores.

“That part of the beverage growth gain is really where the rubber meets the road,” Cessario said. “You’ve got to have good people, you’ve got to have the right structure to really support us.”

The method behind the memes

While funny videos or TikTok campaigns can catch fire quickly at low cost, maintaining the same momentum through brick-and-mortar logistics is a whole different game. 

Liquid Death’s campaigns are known for wry, double-entendre humor that almost never explicitly promotes the product. Down to the caption, Liquid Death wants its posts to strike an authentic, edgy tone users feel compelled to share.

Cessario’s team’s ability to drum up online excitement around Liquid Death helped propel the recent add-on investments from Science and Beverly-Hills entertainment giant Live Nation. 

From publicizing a legal threat from the Arnold Palmer estate over Liquid Death’s initial “Armless Palmer” tea branding to putting Tony Hawk’s actual blood in a branded skateboard, it’s the commitment to the non-commercial bit Cessario says makes his company stand out while others play it safe in a market downturn.

“The riskiest thing you can do, especially as a startup, is to be safe,” Cessario said. “The reality is, a startup is never going to have the marketing dollars or resources as the big companies.”

And many entertainment players have invested in the company.

Hawk, rapper Wiz Khalifa and actor Josh Brolin all sit on the company’s investment board, and Live Nation made Liquid Death its exclusive water supplier for its events two years ago. 

The brand is committed to L.A.

A lot of Liquid Death’s social media content, which has so far garnered 7.9 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, is self-produced by the company here in Los Angeles. 

The access to celebrity collaborators, such as Travis Barker and Tom Segura, and cheap studio space, make L.A the likely long-term home for the branding-obsessed unicorn.

Liquid Death doesn’t have a social media team separated from its rollout strategists – its marketing is a top priority across the company’s leadership chain, and it’s all social-media first.

Described as “day-traders for attention,” employees spanning backgrounds from comedy writing to corporate marketing are tasked to find the “legitimate funny.”

The company hasn’t partnered with that many social influencers, unlike other online-launched competitors such as Celsius and Prime that have opted for name, image and likeness deals with college athletes.

“We start to build like the way Red Bull or Monster is hiring athletes, like we’re hiring professional funny people,” Cessario said.

As the brand gets bigger, its founder says its marketing strategy will keep entertainment a priority.

Even if the company ultimately eyes an exit or acquisition, Cessario promises the branding that made it valuable in the first place won’t change. 

“It’s going to give us options for what we want to do, whether that is an IPO or whether that is (a) strategic partnership with a larger4company,” Cessario said. “That’s what we’re really trying to preserve, is optionality.”