We’ve spoken about branding strategies before: sustainability and social enterprise and this was a way for a small business to carve out a niche in a well developed market. You can’t compete the traditional way so you tug at different emotions.

The problem in SA is that there is already existing incumbents, and it is difficult to compete there unless you undercutting. Which we don’t want to do, the foreigners who’s main model is undercutting live 10-15 people in a house, wife, kids, inlaws and workers. There needs to be a better way to compete. How better than a brand that makes people say “STOP THE MADNESS”. People must basically think “this is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard” or a variation of that.

Today we look at the opposite of usual. What if you launch a brand that is so ridiculous that people will buy either because it appeals to a fringe group, people become curious because it makes no sense and wants to see what the fuss is about.

Exhibit A
Brand: Liquid Death
“Mountain water that comes in a tallboy aluminum can resembling beer packaging. The nonalcoholic beverage (it’s water), from former Netflix creative director Mike Cessario, is aimed at straight-edge punks, but its packaging and promise to “murder your thirst” struck many as over-the-top examples of toxic masculinity”.
Founded: 2017
Funding: A total of $200.6M in funding over 7 rounds
Valuation: $700m (R11.9 billion)
What is it: Water in a can. That is it.
Tagline: Murder Your Thirst
Products: Sparkling and flavoured water (Mango Chainsaw, Severed Lime, and Berry It Alive)
Launch Plan: Launch bars, tattoo parlors, and certain barber shops in Los Angeles and Philadelphia as a “lifestyle play”. The brand was initially marketed towards straight edge adherents and fans of heavy metal music and punk rock. Straight edge “is a subculture of hardcore punk whose adherents refrain from using alcohol, tobacco, and other recreational drugs, in reaction to the excesses of punk subculture. For some, this extends to refraining from engaging in promiscuous sex, to following a vegetarian or vegan diet, and to not using caffeine or prescription drugs”.

The money pumped into...let me check my notes...water in a tin.

The money pumped into…let me check my notes…water in a tin.

 

Further reading:

Liquid Death is here to bring toxic masculinity back
Controversial H2Opinion: Liquid death is dumb and you probably shouldn’t drink it.

Tips for success
Know your target market

Aspirational: having or characterized by aspirations to achieve social prestige and material success.
Often times people talk about aspirational brands “a brand of goods that people believe is of good quality and that will make them feel successful if they own it: An aspirational brand will almost always be more expensive than other products in the market”.

When the “influencer” Nadia Jaftha wanted to host her birthday party at Saint Lounge with tables ranging from R1500 to R15000, Cape Town’s indigenous community laughed her out of the room. We recently saw Saint put up tables that will cost R1 million (R1000000). Who in their right mind will pay that? Not in Ibiza, the French Riviera, Zurich or Paris but Harrington Street, Gardens, Zonneblom, District Six whatever you want to call it. As a local it is nothing to write home about. It does not warrant even spending R1000 on a table not even to see Mariah Carey.  So who in their right mind will pay that? And why?
The target market there will be someone who, most likely grew up poor, now nouveau riche, part of a group that suffered historical prejudice and still has that deep-seated insecurity and need to prove themselves by making a show of their money. Especially by rubbing it in the face of the previous oppressor. And that is how you need to profile your target market. Throw convention out of the window. Spending R1 million at a club does not prove anything. It’s just theater. That isn’t even a nice part of town (not that there are any posh parts in the Cape Town CBD anymore) it’s close to where “The Cage” strip club used to be (where Cape Flats single mothers used to earn an income before SASSA was invented) and Dias Tavern (that sells katemba which they pretentiously spell with a “c” like we in some kind of Portuguese colony, it’s literally Tassies mixed with Coke. I mean seriously WHAT THE FUCK?! Not even the Mozambicans drink that shit anymore). Hardly symbols of the upper class. A club that can’t even position itself in an upscale neighbourhood charging R1m per table is a classic example of the absurdity of this business model. But I did have someone from the Eastern Cape once tell me that Cape Town is like Monaco, an interaction I sometimes think about when I’m sad to cheer me up. So there’s that: target market.

 

 …on a sailboat, surrounded by sea with no land in sight, without even the possibility of sighting land for days to come? To stand at the helm of your destiny. I want that, one more time. I want to be in the Piazza del Campo in Siena. To feel the surge as 10 racehorses go thundering by. I want another meal in Paris, at L’Ambroisie, at the Place des Vosges. I want another bottle of wine. And then another. I want the warmth of a woman and a cool set of sheets. One more night of jazz at the Vanguard. I want to stand on the summits and smoke Cubans and feel the sun on my face for as long as I can. Walk on the Wall again. Climb the Tower. Ride the River. Stare at the Frescos. I want to sit in the garden and read one more good book. Most of all I want to sleep. I want to sleep like I slept when I was a boy.  – All of this will cost less than R1m to do and you will still have enough change to spend a month in the Maldives.

 

Business Ideas

  • Many people in SA hate successful people with a passion. Cater to them by starting a brand for the unambitious, lazy, apathetic and unaspiring. Potential names: R350, UBI, SRD Grant.
  • Sell a red beret with an LCD stock ticker on so the communists can keep track of their EasyEquities accounts.