Creative Director’s Choice: GoDo Discovery Co’s Todd Lancaster on Liquid Death’s graphic campaign
Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the work they think is the best out in the ad world — the ads and campaigns they believe are making a difference.
Liquid Death
This week, GoDo Discovery Co’s chief creative officer, Todd Lancaster, talks why canned water company Liquid Death’s brutally graphic campaign is just right for its product niche.
Hands down, then brutally cut off by the executioner’s axe, Liquid Death’s ‘Murder Your Thirst’ campaign – and the product in general – is absolutely killing it.
Maybe it’s because I’m the only grey-beard still dropping in at the local skate park. Or maybe it’s because my oldest son is the lead singer for a hardcore band whose logo is as illegible as the vocals. But this campaign hit me like the refreshing mountain water the company is selling.
This product is so niche, so perfectly both current and nostalgic, so perfectly punk rock, that it just works. Many readers may be too young to remember the straight-edge movement that came out of the hardcore scene in the mid 80s, but Liquid Death is taking that aesthetic to the next level. With all of the absolutely terrible products that have been pushed on kids trying to capitalize on underground youth culture, it’s about time someone’s using the power of the dark side for good. Getting kids to grab a tallboy of water versus the alternative tallboys in the market and quit polluting the world with another plastic bottle – #deathtoplastic – kudos to you, [creative] Mike Cessario and team.
In a time where the top of the charts are ruled by Swifties and airplay has pushed
rock’n’roll to the extreme corners of the music world, what a time to point an arrow right at that corner and let it fly. Because the kids in that corner will totally get it and so will all their dads who secretly wear their Misfits shirts on the weekend, or maybe even to work everyday.
And as history has shown us time after time, it’s what’s going on in the underground that all of the sheep finally wake up to and notice. And it’s what ever they’re doing – or drinking – that’s destined to be the next big thing.
There’s something bubbling up from the underground and it’s Liquid Death.
Todd Lancaster is chief creative officer at GoDo Discovery Co, a creative collective in Dallas.
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To see the latest creative ads and campaigns, visit The Drum’s Creative Works section. If you or your creative director would like to be featured in our Creative Director’s Choice, please contact Kyle O’Brien.
