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

Liam:

Louis, incredibly excited for today’s episode. Ever since I met you at Cart Stars in Vegas I had to have you on. Your journey through the world of ecom, brand, and everything in between is pretty wild. So many people look up to your observations and opinions. For those who don’t know you — let’s start with your story. Who are you?

Louis:

Thank you for having me. Big fan of what you’ve been building. I like to center this question around a very pivotal moment when I was in college. I went to Harvard and concentrated in the highly marketable degree of folklore and mythology. It was all about the power of narrative and storytelling. When you think about branding and marketing, what is it if not fundamentally narrative and storytelling? What seemed like an obtuse area of study actually laid an incredible foundation for my career. From there I worked at Leo Burnett, a big agency in Chicago doing brand strategy for huge companies like Motorola and Morgan Stanley. Then I moved to New York and spent about 10 years in corporate fashion at Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and John Varvatos, helping those companies launch new price points and divisions, before pivoting into the DTC ecommerce space.

Liam:

Why go into this world in the first place?

Louis:

I really enjoy the fast-paced mentality of the DTC world. I love that there’s always a new technology or platform or strategy to not only keep up with but to test and implement. I just really love the hustle and bustle of the overall ecosystem. It’s a really fun place to play.

Liam:

You’ve been doing some keynote talks recently. You spoke to 700 wine marketing professionals and then to 300 ecommerce agency owners. What were you mostly talking about and what resonated most?

Louis:

The core thesis of my talk — and this is a framework I put into place whenever I come in as CMO of an organization — is that many brands play at the level of talking about their features and their benefits. The example I love to give is bedding and sheets. Everyone talks about thread count and type of cotton. Do any of us really know the ideal thread count? Probably not. But the biggest font on the packaging is the thread count. They’re taking up all their visual real estate and marketing messaging around this feature that nobody really understands. The brands that do it a bit better talk about benefits — okay, the thread count means softer sheets, great. But everyone can make the same claim. Especially in a competitive marketplace like Amazon, that becomes a race to the bottom on price. The brands that really do it well are focused on creating an emotional connection. If you find out your audience tends to skew toward working mothers, you have a really compelling message: we understand all the stresses you’re under, you deserve the very best when you go to sleep. If you can tap into that emotional resonance, your audience is going to pay more when it comes time to make a decision.

Liam:

What are agencies getting wrong or misunderstanding when it comes to working with brands today, especially in the world of AI?

Louis:

As someone on the marketing side at a brand, you are inundated with outreach. Everyone is claiming to lower your CAC, increase your LTV, give you better CRO — whatever the acronym, there’s someone to solve it. And most of those messages go unanswered because they don’t really speak to the challenges I’m facing. Those metrics are important, but they’re just table stakes for any partner I’m working with. When was the last time an agency said, “I bet you’re feeling pressure from the board to justify your headcount,” or “I bet you’re under pressure to demonstrate you’re adopting AI technologies quickly — let us help you with that”? And the other thing I said in my keynote: if you’re working with a brand, find out when the board meetings are. A week after that board meeting, do a check-in and say, “Have your priorities shifted? How can we support you? What does the roadmap look like now?” Because things pivot quickly.

Liam:

Do you think there’s huge pressure on brands to be adopting AI technologies? And where do you see agencies playing over the next two years?

Louis:

Absolutely, 100% pressure. And what I like to say is AI is the hammer, but you still need a hand to navigate the hammer. Agencies that are functioning as a utility are in trouble — that will be automated and subsumed. The agencies that are really going to add value are the ones that bring that layer of judgment, expertise, and guidance. Everybody says they want to be a partner to the brand, and that requires the brand being willing to hold hands too. But if you can bring strategy and execution together, you’re going to succeed.

Liam:

Where are the biggest pressure points for bringing AI into a business today?

Louis:

All of the above — and not just marketing. Finance, operations, logistics, customer support are all being presented with potential solutions. Boards and C-suite are really evaluating where they need to invest in the technology and where they need to invest in the people. Is there an opportunity to up-level some existing employees to be the hand operating the hammer? Or in some cases, sadly, there will be reductions in headcount around that.

Liam:

How are you evaluating AI tools yourself? What are you looking for most?

Louis:

I feel like a kid in a candy store right now — there are so many options I want to try. The opportunity I’d say for SaaS partners is give your customers optionality. I know everyone wants to lock you into an annual contract, but the AI focus is probably going to shift dramatically in the next three months, let alone twelve. Unless you’re a core operating system like Shopify or Klaviyo, it’s very hard to entice people to fully commit. Give me an out clause that allows me to play around with it, and maybe it’s not right for my business or we don’t have the internal team ready to manage it yet.

Liam:

How do you think brands are going to need to differentiate in the world of AI? A lot of people say creative — do you agree?

Louis:

I think it’s brand positioning and brand values. The example I love is Liquid Death. The bottled water industry is fascinating to me — water is a free commodity that’s safe and easy to access in most of the developed world, yet we pay a premium for it. And Liquid Death isn’t talking about pH or minerality. You don’t even know the mountain it’s sourced from. That’s what all their competitors are doing — features and benefits. What they’ve done instead is align themselves with subcultural identity: punk, skater, biker. They’ve packaged it in a way that whether you’re at NASCAR or Burning Man, you can drink this and feel that you’re not on the outside of what’s considered cool. That’s a community you’re buying into when you purchase. That’s the opportunity in front of so many brands.

Liam:

How do brands go about actually creating that? Is it workshops, founder-driven, the whole company?

Louis:

The most important thing any team can do is actively listen. And I say actively on purpose. Very often you’ll get feedback from customers and find a reason to dismiss it — 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. You need a constant eye on your feedback mechanisms — social media comments, customer service interactions, reviews on your website or third-party platforms, retail associate insights. You can put all of that into a dedicated LLM model and make sure you’re getting weekly updates. What I like as a deliverable from those updates: the five reasons why people are buying from us and the five reasons why they’re not. Because those are exactly what you have to overcome. Keeping a close eye on those allows you to ladder up into your brand story and brand values. And that feeds into your creative on Meta, what’s on your homepage, what’s in your welcome flow, et cetera.

Liam:

What are you most excited about on the marketing front that you’re actively using today?

Louis:

There’s a lot of tools we’re playing with, but nothing revolutionary. Big fan of Claude. If you can do the work to train it — give it your brand guidelines, your brand voice, your understanding of your COGS and margin structure, your competitive set, be honest with it about your goals and challenges — it can really become a great thought partner to help you strategize go-forward movement. Is it perfect? No. Does it require some babysitting? Of course. But it’s a very powerful tool if orchestrated correctly.

Liam:

You talk a lot about how the numbers alone just aren’t enough. Why?

Louis:

Whether you’re a customer buying a bottle of water or a marketer buying a partnership with Instant, we’re all envisioning a better version of ourselves, a better future by making that purchase. The opportunity is to get above the spreadsheet and into the emotional heart of things. When people are presented with data — and features and benefits fall under this — two parts of the brain light up. When people are presented with emotion and storytelling, seven parts of the brain light up. Who doesn’t want to engage with customers with seven parts of the brain?

Liam:

What happens if a brand is so obsessed with just ROAS and CAC and doesn’t care about the rest? How do you strike that balance?

Louis:

Of course you need to be profitable. But there’s been a fundamental shift in capital markets worth thinking about. For a long time — think Birchbox, Warby Parker — if you had some product-market fit, there was almost unlimited venture capital that didn’t really care if you were profitable. Acquire, acquire, acquire at almost any cost. Now capital markets have shifted to function more like private equity, focused on EBITDA-positive, margin-heavy brands. We just saw what happened with Allbirds. But think about Gruns, which just had a really nice exit — focused on LTV, a high-margin category. If you want great ROAS and CAC numbers, run a sale. That’ll give you a sugar spike like nothing else. But if you want long-term brand equity and people really coming back, you need to focus on something bigger.

Liam:

You talk about understanding the emotional drivers of your customers. What types of emotional signals are you looking for?

Louis:

I’ll give you an example. A few years ago I came in as turnaround CEO for a distressed private equity asset — a brand that catered to plus-size women and sold premium swimwear. They had been around for many years and were one of the first in the space. They’d differentiated themselves through features — underwire construction, wider shoulder straps, certain types of mesh. By the time I came in, the market was much more saturated and, pun intended, the brand was totally underwater. One of the first things I did was look at our messaging, and so much of it was still features and benefits. We went on a listening tour, and what we heard was both heartwarming and heartbreaking. Women would not go to the beach in the summer with their family until they found our bathing suits because they were either embarrassed or didn’t feel comfortable. One woman even said she built a pool in her backyard so she could do summertime activities with her kids without having to go to the community pool. When you start having your messaging say — we understand that you’ve probably had some really bad experiences with other swimwear that didn’t do what it was supposed to do, we’ve solved for all these things, we’re here to support you both physically and emotionally — that’s when things really started to turn around.

Liam:

Are there brands outside of Liquid Death that crack this emotional connection really well?

Louis:

The pantheon of marketing gods — Coca-Cola, Disney, Apple. We pay more for the experiences those brands offer because we want to be part of that community. It says something about us subconsciously when we pull out an iPhone. And my background before ecom was Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. You’re selling a T-shirt. You’ve chosen to wear a Polo by Ralph Lauren today because it must mean something to you versus a competitor at a similar price point. Why is that?

Liam:

How do you connect with your community directly in a world driven by online and influencers?

Louis:

Two thoughts. One — meet your audience where they are. If they’re on Reddit, if they’re on another channel, make sure you’re there in a meaningful way and create a safe space for them. Two — we’re so obsessed with scalability, rightly so. But think about opportunities to engage that still feel personal. Event marketing is one. The other thing I encourage teams to do is actually get on the phone with customers. When was the last time anyone outside of customer service had a phone call with a customer? When was the last time the CEO called a VIP client who’s been there since the beginning, just thanked them, tried to understand how they found the brand and what it means to them, and incentivized them to share it with friends and family? These don’t have to be long — 10 to 15 minutes, once a month. The insights you gain will really change the course of the business.

Liam:

Your keynote was also about belief. Talk to us about what that means.

Louis:

Getting back to college — a professor once asked: what’s the only difference between religion and mythology? It comes down to one core idea, which is belief. If you believe in the stories about Zeus and Hera, as people did thousands of years ago, that becomes your religion. If you don’t, it becomes a collection of entertaining literature we read in high school. So how do you take this idea of belief into brand building? Because when people believe in something, they will go above and beyond — both in terms of what they’re willing to pay and how they’ll evangelize the brand. Think about Hermès. Think about what it means to have a Birkin. Is there great quality? Yes. Heritage? Absolutely. But you’re sending a signal to everyone else that you understand this world and you’re part of it.

Liam:

What does building belief look like inside a marketing team in practice?

Louis:

It really comes down to understanding your customer. And here’s where a lot of companies fumble, especially founder-led businesses. For a certain period of time, the brand is incredibly autobiographical — the decisions you make are the decisions your customers are going to resonate with. But there’s a tipping point where you may no longer be your core audience. It’s very hard for a lot of founders to let the ego drop and say — I’m going to trust the data, trust my team to make decisions that aren’t my first instinct when it comes to product assortment, retail strategy, or influencer selection. But that’s what the evolved audience actually appreciates. You have to stay close to the customer. And how many brands spend all this time building customer personas and doing beautiful research, and then let it sit stagnant and treat it as gospel in perpetuity?

Liam:

How do you consistently reinforce that belief internally — for new starters and longtime team members?

Louis:

A lot of it is leveraging AI to keep track of customer sentiment and stay on top of it. Another part is making sure the entire team is in touch with actual customers. And then making sure there’s an open pathway of communication — where someone in customer service feels empowered to say, “I saw that you’re planning to do X, Y, and Z. Based on everything I’m hearing from customers, I don’t think that’s the right direction.” That kind of signal has to be able to travel up.

Liam:

Tell us about where you are today — CMO at Artware.

Louis:

I’ve been an advisor with Artware for several years and came on in a more official capacity about a year ago. The company is most akin to a MoMA Design Store — we partner with the estates of blue chip artists like Basquiat, Jeff Koons, and Warhol, and do really beautiful giftable items. The thesis is art that isn’t a canvas, doesn’t hang on your wall. We have plates, rugs, skateboards, surfboards, furniture — a lot of it limited edition. We vacillate between the homeware space and the art world.

Liam:

How do you manage growth without relying on discounts?

Louis:

You have to think more long-term. The challenge of only working in quarterly or annual views is that over five years, where is the business actually going? Thinking about what’s right for your brand, your partners, and your end audience is what builds sustained growth. Our audience is more excited about new product drops than they are about discounts. What I always say about discounting is it’s kind of like being on a diet — at first it’s a little painful, but then you get the adrenaline rush of knowing you’re doing what’s right. If you start discounting, you signal to the market that you are a discount brand, and that’s very hard to walk back.

Liam:

What are you most excited about for the year ahead in AI?

Louis:

I’m really excited to see how things evolve. I’m also scared. And I think anyone on the marketing or ecom side who says they don’t have some level of trepidation is fooling themselves. Everyone’s role is evolving so quickly that you have to do everything you can to stay up to date, stay flexible, and continue to add value. If you’re in a purely executional role, you need to think about how to get out of that. If you’re in a purely strategic role, you need to think about how many AI tools you can gain mastery over as quickly as possible. I feel overwhelmed and underprepared, honestly. Talking to people who are more in the weeds, going to conferences, reading newsletters and Substacks and podcasts — it’s just important to stay open.

Liam:

What’s the most overhyped thing about AI right now?

Louis:

That agentic shopping is going to completely replace brand websites. I do not believe that. Will agentic shopping become a channel through which purchases are made? Absolutely. Will it make brand websites obsolete? No. However, the function of the brand website should continue to evolve — to do more to tell the brand story, the founder story, really get people into the world and community of the brand, as opposed to being as purely transactional as some have been. The content on your website has never been more important, because AI tools are scraping that information from somewhere. And the shopper is still going to shop — especially for something like a piece of art. I just don’t see a near-term world where agents are doing all of that for them.

Liam:

Thanks so much for coming on. We covered so much and I’m excited to have you back in 12 months to see what the world looks like.

Louis:

Love it. Absolutely.

They dive into:

Why leading with features and benefits is a race to the bottom

What Liquid Death, Hermes, and Apple understand that most brands don’t

How to build emotional connection at scale without losing profitability

Why discounting is a sugar spike and what to focus on instead

How AI is reshaping brand strategy and what every marketer should be doing now

00:00 Introduction 

01:30 Louis’s background: from Harvard mythology to 5x CMO 

04:32 Why most brands compete on features and lose 

08:08 What AI means for agencies and brand partners 

11:55 What Liquid Death, Hermes, and Apple actually sell 

13:36 How to actively listen to your customers 

17:00 The neuroscience of storytelling vs data 

18:06 The problem with chasing ROAS and discounting 

20:04 The swimwear turnaround: what listening to customers really looks like 

25:31 Building belief: what mythology teaches us about brand 

27:15 Why founder-led brands hit a wall 

30:34 What’s different in the art vertical

34:28 Why every marketer should be paying attention right now 

37:20 The most overhyped thing about AI in ecommerce