The Secret Behind Liquid Death’s Self-Sustaining Content Loop
3 strategies that connect digital buzz to retail purchases
Hey everyone,
Welcome back for another bite to chew on.
Most brands treat viral buzz and retail performance like separate worlds. Content teams chase views, retail teams track velocity—but nobody knows if one actually drives the other.
We recently sat down with Benoit Vatere, Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death—the water brand that put their product in beer cans and built one of the most viral content machines in retail.
They cracked the code on connecting social engagement to actual sales. And today we’re going to break down their system.
🍽️ On the Menu:
Turn Your Content Team Into SNL Writers
Product Design Either Helps or Kills Your Content
How to Prove Your Viral Content Actually Works
You can watch the whole conversation with Benoit here:
Stop Drowning in Customer Feedback
Thousands of support tickets. Endless product reviews. Social comments you’ll never have time to tag.
You know the insights are in there but with data scattered across platforms, most CX teams can’t connect the dots.
That means missed product issues, slower response times, and customer frustration that slips through the cracks.
Syncly fixes that. It pulls every signal into one place and makes it actionable:
Centralize feedback from tickets, reviews, and social channels
Automate tagging & classification so your team can focus on action, not admin
Uncover hidden issues and trends buried in thousands of touchpoints
Share insights across teams — so CX, product, and marketing are working from the same source of truth
Your customers don’t care about silos. They just want faster responses, better products, and a brand that feels like it’s listening.
Syncly helps you deliver that by turning raw feedback into clear, usable insights.
Turn Your Content Team Into SNL Writers
Liquid Death's creative team operates with one rule: make people laugh first, optimize for platforms never.
"They think about a skit—literally like putting on an SNL skit. That's how they think. They don't think about the platform. They don't think about the first five seconds how the algo is going to react. No, they think about making people laugh."
Most content teams get this backward. They:
Obsess over hook timing for each platform
Create content around algorithm preferences
Optimize for engagement metrics instead of entertainment
Think platform mechanics before story
Liquid Death focuses purely on comedy and entertainment value.
They create content that works as standalone entertainment, let virality happen naturally through genuine laughs, then repurpose the same concept across all platforms.
And the payoff is massive. They generate thousands of weekly UGC videos without paying for them because people genuinely find the brand entertaining.
And this works for any brand. Comedy works for Liquid Death, but entertainment can be inspiring (Nike), educational (HubSpot), or surprising (Dollar Shave Club).
How to apply this yourself:
Start every content brief with entertainment value, not platform specs.
Ask your team: "Would this make someone laugh/cry/think if they saw it on TV?" If the answer is “no,” start over.
Test content concepts with people outside your company before filming.
If they don't react strongly, the algorithm won't save you.
Entertainment value beats platform optimization every time. Focus on making people feel something first.
Product Design Either Helps or Kills Your Content
Your product design is either helping your content go viral or killing it.
Liquid Death turned their packaging into a content creation machine that works 24/7.
Their beer-can-that's-actually-water creates massive opportunities. The product itself becomes a conversation starter, every purchase creates a potential viral moment, and the visual disruption works in every retail environment.
But the strategy isn’t perfect—platforms sometimes confuse their packaging with alcohol.
"Facebook and TikTok think it's a beer. So because of that, they don't let the content go. So I have to talk to them all the time like, ‘remember this is not beer, this is water.’"
The packaging generates massive organic content without asking for it. Every Liquid Death appearance—in someone's hand, on a shelf, in a video—stands out and prompts reactions worth filming.
Why this matters
Your packaging appears in every piece of content featuring your product.
If it doesn't create the natural "wait, what is that?" moments, you're leaving viral potential on the table. Brands spend thousands on content creation while ignoring the one element guaranteed to appear in every customer photo and video.
Every customer photo and unboxing video is free advertising. Design for those moments.
⭐️ Spotlight
Let’s be real: legacy tools weren’t built for ecommerce. During BFCM, “good enough” means burned-out teams, abandoned carts, and CX leaders juggling too many apps.
That’s why brands like Glossier, Tommy John, and SuitShop have made the switch to Gorgias — not just to survive peak season, but to scale smarter and faster.
Join Making the Switch to Gorgias , a live session hosted by our friend Jeremy Horowitz (CEO, Let’s Buy a Biz!) with:
Cati Brunell-Brutman, Head of CX at Glossier
Max Wallace, Director of CX at Tommy John
Katy Eriks, Director of CX at SuitShop
What you’ll learn:
Why leading DTC brands made the switch (there’s definitely still time to do so before this year’s main event)
What migration actually looks like (with full support from the Gorgias team)
How to scale without urgent hiring or team overload
The exact AI strategies driving revenue and reducing support load
There’s still time to switch before BFCM — let these leaders show you how.
How to Prove Your Viral Content Actually Works
The biggest question in marketing: "Is our viral content actually driving sales?"
Brands create viral content but can't prove it drives purchases. You might get millions of views, but have no idea if those viewers ever bought your product in stores.
Liquid Death solved this with sweepstakes that require retail receipts for entry.
They create massive viral campaigns (like their jet giveaway trolling Pepsi), but to enter, you must submit a receipt proving you bought their product at a store.
This forces people to go from digital engagement to retail purchase.
The viral campaign gets people excited, the prize motivates action, and the receipt requirement bridges content exposure to store sales.
This unlocks attribution data brands never access: tracking whether people who saw your content actually bought your product in stores.
They can measure view-through attribution, test incrementality across campaigns, and connect upper-funnel content to retail sales.
You don't need a massive jet giveaway to apply this strategy. Start simple:
Receipt-based promotions where customers submit receipts for discounts on future purchases
Track which social posts drive the most receipt submissions
For e-commerce brands, create campaigns requiring real-world actions:
Photo contests with your product in specific locations
Challenges that require purchasing to participate
Exclusive access for customers who complete offline actions
The traditional approach of measuring each platform separately misses how customers actually behave.
Someone might see your TikTok, remember it weeks later at Target, and buy your product. Standard attribution would never connect those dots—meaning you're probably spending money on content that drives sales, and you don't even know it.
Fix this attribution gap and you'll finally know which campaigns actually grow your business.
Sum It Up
Brands throw money at content hoping it drives sales, then throw more money at retail hoping people remember the content.
Meanwhile, Liquid Death built a machine where both sides feed each other.
Their beer-can water creates thousands of confused reactions weekly. Their SNL-style content makes people genuinely laugh instead of scroll past. Their sweepstakes turn viral moments into trackable retail data.
The result?
A self-sustaining system where entertainment funds attribution, packaging amplifies content, and retail sales prove what actually works.
✅ Make people feel something first, optimize for algorithms never
✅ Turn every product appearance into a "wait, what is that?" moment
✅ Connect your viral campaigns to purchase behavior you can actually measure
That’s the real playbook: don’t just go viral—build a system where every viral moment pushes people closer to purchase.
Let us know how we did...
All the best,
Ron & Ash