Media x commerce

Last week, Liquid Death launched Greatest Hates, Vol. 3, a full-length album produced entirely out of hater comments. The tunes are available on streaming services and vinyl and, for one song in particular, the Liquid Death team went so far as producing a music video. Some of our team have been listening to the songs on repeat for a whole week now.

Greatest Hates isn’t just a marketing stunt: it doesn’t take an audiophile to tell that the music is actually pretty damn good. Greatest Hates is a media operation, and a complex one too. For a CPG brand to produce this kind of content (and to do it consistently over time, as in the case of Liquid Death), it requires a non-negligible amount of effort.

This left us wondering: is Liquid Death a water brand that happens to produce media, or is it a media brand that happens to sell water? One may argue that it depends on how they make revenue, but it’s highly unlikely that Liquid Death would see its current success without the media piece of its marketing machine, so where does that leave us? Let’s try to find out.

One of the very first and most successful DTC stories to date, Glossier, was born from founder Emily Weiss’ Into the Gloss, a blog where Emily interviewed celebrities about their makeup and skincare habits. But the roots of the media x commerce alliance can be traced even further back: the Michelin Guide—yes, that Michelin Guide—was originally designed to generate demand for fine dining, and hence for travel, and hence for cars, and hence for car tires.

For decades, consumer brands have been using media to escape the boundaries of retail, and media brands have been using commerce to make ends meet in what’s widely recognized as a cutthroat category to operate in—see Wirecutter or, more recently, the Netflix Merch Shop.

When you go one step further and offer both media and commerce in a fully integrated machine—one that doesn’t just create demand, but uniquely positions your brand and transcends definition—you’re rewriting your relationship with the customer to go beyond mere utility, and creating a potent marketing flywheel in the process.

What most of the commenters featured in Liquid Death’s lyrics don’t realize is that the brand’s customers are not paying top dollar for just water: they’re paying for the privilege of identifying themselves with LD’s mischievous and playful nature. As a result, Liquid Death only competes with Liquid Death.

So what, you might be wondering at this point—and frankly, we’re asking ourselves the same question. Is a media x commerce play something you do, or something you are? While we’re not sure, it’s most likely a mix of both: some brands are well-positioned, like Liquid Death and Mr. Beast’s Feastables; others are just great at timing and execution, like Michelin.

What we do know is that the blending of media and commerce is inevitable as consumers look for brands that offer both convenience and cultural belonging. Now is a good time to decide whether that’s a shift you’re willing and able to participate in.