Liquid Death
jasonleow • 15 Jul 2022 •
Liquid Death is one brand that’s fascinated me recently.
It’s just water sold in a can. But it’s not just water, it’s MAN water. It’s badass water. The can is designed to look like beer cans, with heavy metal-inspired font and designs, combined with marketing taglines like “Murder your thirst”. You look cooler and hotter holding that can, than a clear plastic bottle of mineral water.
It’s a product that’s 100% branding. No one buys it for the water inside.
I’m fascinated because before bottled water felt like one of those ‘dead’ product categories. Differentiation is dead there. Where every brand looks the same. Where the main product is a commodity. Where the core experience of consuming it is 99.9% similar (because come on, distilled water and mountain spring water tastes the same to the average bear). It looked like that’s all to it forever more, with nothing left to innovate in this product space. Yet along came this irreverent brand and is killing it.
It made me wonder: What other ‘dead’ product categories—physical or digital—are out there, waiting to be disrupted this way? Which boring products out there do we take for granted?
A few I can think of:
Milk
Ice cream
Bread
Meat
Vegetables
Airlines
Office supplies
Printers
Credit cards
Ecommerce stores
Web browsers (Chrome, Edge)
Email clients
Smartphones (surprise, surprise)
Do you agree with the categories above? What did I miss?
More importantly, what’s some ‘dead’ product spaces that indie hackers can work on?
Comments
Huh, it literally say “it’s just water.” But I can see the appeal. Drinking from a cold aluminum can is satisfying.
I suppose they’ll start selling Solid Death next… ice.
@therealbrandonwilson haha I get your point 😜
@Winkletter now that’s a solid idea! Post it to their suggestion inbox!
I think it’s a great brand. Topo Chico is still my go-to, but I’ll throw in some Liquid Death now and again. I’ve seen Tik Tok videos where people called “water sommeliers” can somehow identify brands through blind taste tests. Interesting how that was the catch for you to get to the point of your piece, and I only have thoughts about the catch and not the point. 😜