The Secret Marketing Strategy Liquid Death, Hermes, and Apple Have in Common

I want to move on to wrapping all that together.

How do you think that brands are going to need to differentiate in the world of AI? This is such a common topic now and something I think you might have touched on in your in kind of your keynote was how important it is for a brand to really start to think about how they can stand out from the rest.

Do you think that this is creative? A lot of people are talking about the way to differentiate now is creative.

Do you think it's something else? Well, what are your kind of thoughts there?

I think it's brand positioning, brand values.

So an example that I love is Liquid Death.

Now, the water as purchasable beverage industry is fascinating to me because it is a free commodity that is safe and easy to access in most of the developed world, yet we will pay a premium for bottled water.

And if you think about Liquid Death, what are they not doing? They're not talking about pH, minerality.

You don't even know the mountain that it's sourced from.

That's what all their competitors are doing.

Those are features and benefits.

What they've done instead is align themselves with subcultural identity.

So punk, skater, biker, etc.

And they've packaged it in a way that if you're at an event, doesn't matter if it's NASCAR or Burning Man, you can drink this beverage and feel that you are not on the outside of what's considered cool.

That's a community that you're buying into when you purchase from that brand.

And that's the opportunity in front of so many.

How do you think that brands should go about setting that? I mean, brands, obviously, you know, many brands have been around for a long time and kind of need a bit of a refresh.

But I think that so many new brands are getting ahead of the old because they're starting with this mentality.

If you're a brand today, and I mean, maybe the brands you've worked with where you are today.

How are you going about creating what you truly want to be? Is it workshops? Is it founder driven? Is it the whole company being a part of it? How do you actually create it?

The most important thing that any team can do is to be actively listening.

And I say actively on purpose.

Very often you'll get feedback from customers or potential customers saying, and find a reason to dismiss it.

Either they don't get it, they're not our target audience, they had a one-off experience, but what they're actually telling you is gold.

So it's very important to have a constant eye on the feedback mechanisms.