Yeah

... and the, the other thing too, and this is just, just as a quick aside, like I think, you know, when it comes to a brief, I think like the reason why we sometimes will skip that step in the traditional sense is 'cause like at the end of the day, we're, if we're doing a partnership with a celebrity or another brand, we're trying to figure out like what's the most like obvious logical thing that these two, you know, brands would come together to, to, to make, right? In, in, in a way that, you know, it has to start with, with real logic, and it, it needs to, needs to be simple enough for the mainstream public to understand and think is interesting, right? And so I think if we spent too much time on a brief where we get overly strategic, we're almost getting too in the weeds where like the idea kind of loses the, the beauty of like an unexpected partnership, and it starts getting too technical and too specific and, and- Yeah Do, do you guys, has this gotten harder or easier as you've expanded your product lines to iced teas and energy and things like that? Like, um, sparkling water.

You know, it used to be like water, like whatever's, whatever's like interesting and wild about, you know, sustainability and water and, you know, like death, [chuckles] whatever, right? And, and all these things and, and that could go in a million and one different directions, and it, and it did.

And now you have these new products that you are seeking to sell, and so you're trying to represent the sort of, you know, the, the, the value proposition of those, right? Um, in, in new, fun ways.

So is it, is it like different than how you approached it before where it was like, yeah, fucking everybody drinks water.

Like you have to do that, do that.

Now it's like you're actually trying to sell, whether it's flavors or whether it's like a, a, a feeling, like energy.

Yeah

Oh, wow

... independents at the time.

Um, but, but all the, yeah, the bulk, the bulk of the, um, the bulk of the sales were coming through liquiddeath.com, including the beverage, right? And so, um, when, when I started, um, Mike and I talked about this at, at, you know, you know, in, in probably my first touch base, which was, "Hey, we've got this amazing, hilarious brand.

It's-- We have this really, you know, engaged core customer.

How do we, you know, how do we build this brand for the masses without losing the soul and, like, losing the, the humor and the edge that, that we had, right?" And so that was kind of my, my directive, and it feels like five years has just f- flown by, um, since, since that first conversation.

Um, but, uh, but yeah, it was how do we build this for the mainstream audience so that we could start to break into retailers? Um, and then, and then also, how do we compete with the, the really big beverage brands out there that spend, you know, billions on marketing, uh, and, and media that we will never be able to compete with that type of media spend? So how do we, how do we gain the type of awareness that we need to compete with those, with those, uh, those big players, um, without having to spend the money? And so that's where I brought in that, that earned media strategy, which, you know, Mike comes from a background of, you know, he was at CPB, right? He, he understands the, the power of creating marketing that's, you know, used to drive headlines and get people talking.

So it wasn't new to him.

So why don't you just to like give us an example how this came about, what, what the story is behind this one.