It’s impossible to predict whether a given product will catch on in foreign markets. An American sparkling water which has been a huge hit at home has flopped in the UK. Now, Liquid Death is ‘pausing’ international sales altogether…
Marketing gurus are scrambling to figure out why Liquid Death didn’t perform in the UK as strongly as it did in the US. The experts had predicted it would do for British fancy water what the Beatles did for American Rock & Roll…
Blindsided
Marketing experts were blindsided when sparkling water brand Liquid Death flopped dismally in the UK and other international markets. It débuted in its home market a couple of years back to great reviews. In fact it became an instant cult classic.
Emboldened by its initial success, the brand immediately made plans to expand into Europe, where it expected to find equal or even greater popularity.
Imagine brand executives’ surprise when UK consumers basically shunned the product. The so-called experts say they still don’t know why. But the immediate upshot of the UK sales fizzle has been the recent announcement the brand is pulling out not only from the UK, but from international sales al-together. At least for the time being…
Flashback to the 70s…
General Motors marketers made a huge miscalculation back in the 1970s when they came to intro-duce their popular Chevy Nova model in South America,
In spite of all their reserch on the kind of car that Brazillians wanted, they found that buyers shuned the Nova in droves. It turned out that nobody ij Detroit has noticed they speak Portuguese in Brazil. And in that Portuguese, ‘no va’ means ‘doesn’t go’. There was an easy fix or that one. They simply re-named the model ‘Estrella’, which meant ‘Star’. And GM subsequently sold shiploads of them across South America.
But issues with the Liquid Death brand may run much deeper, and more subtle than the ‘Nova’ prob-lem did. In fact, there could be multiple problems combining to complicate the brand’s lack of appeal across the pond.
What’s going on?
Writing in the International Business Times, veteran brand watcher Teddy Cambosa recalls Liquid Death was hailed as… “a bit of a branding legend when it launched in the US in 2019. With its [….] Heavy Metal font, hungover rock star tone of voice, ‘Murder Your Thirst’ strapline [and] Monster-sized cans, it grew from nothing to unicorn status in record time.
“In March of last year,” Cambosa points out, “it raised (US)$67 million in a fundraising round to support new product development and international expansion, valuing the cult brand at a whopping (US)$1.238 billion.”
Hit a wall
But the bold drive into the UK hit a wall.
Sales there over an initial trial period amounted to a mere $2.2 million. Hardly a drop in the proverb-ial bucket. An oddly equivocal statement from LD headquarters earlier this month asserted that the brand had experienced, “strong demand and brand awareness growth in our limited international rollout,” but was, “temporarily pausing international efforts.” LD is even shutting down all production capabilities outside of the US.
Some possible reasons for he flop…
Cambosa consulted UK marketing experts who had more than a few ideas why the product failed to catch on there… Not least of which included:
- LD came late to the Brit bottled water scene, after other brands had carved up the available market pie.
- British drinking water is relatively wholesome, and most Brits do drink it. As opposed the the US, where a majority of consumers now buy bottled water for drinking and cooking. The UK bottled market is much smaller, to start with, than the US cousin.
- Beer is king the UK. More folks buy canned or bottled beer than buy canned or bottled water.
- The product’s very name may have been ill-advised for the UK market. As ‘Nova’ had cultural and linguistic issues in Brazil, ‘Liquid Death’, it’s suggested, faced similar image problems in the UK. “Perhaps Brits are just too literal?” Cambosa observes. “Water is meant to be good for you. ‘Death’ is not.”
- And last but not least… Even at home in the US, many folks, initially at least, thought ‘Liquid Death’ was another of those caffeine-pumped energy drinks. And as such, not for them. The punky slogan, ‘Murder Your Thirst’ might also have bolstered that misunderstanding…
My take
I can see why Liquid Death’s marketing mandarins might have taken too much for granted about UK culture going in. After all, so many other US products had entered the UK market successfully before their product, they may have assumed such a home hit would be a natural over there, too.
But that doesn’t absolve them from failing to perform standard ‘due diligence’ in their market re-search, test marketing and focus-group programs.
Let that be a lesson to other US brands planning to invade Britain and the EU…
~ Maggie J.