Liquid Death and e.l.f. Cosmetics stand out as bold disruptors, each reshaping the gold standard of entertaining marketing. In an unexpected collaboration, we introduced Corpse Paint, merging e.l.f.'s expertise in premium makeup with Liquid Death's daring and witty advertising. The avant-garde campaign quickly took the internet by storm, striking the perfect balance of bizarre, nostalgia and edgy humor. By embracing the cultural zeitgeist, e.l.f. and Liquid Death not only captivated audiences but also cemented their positions as entertainment giants.

Corpse paint is the style of painting one’s face completely with black and white makeup. It’s particularly associated with the black metal scene, particularly Norwegian black metal.

Liquid Death is the internet’s most viral drink. e.l.f. Cosmetic is the internet’s most viral line of makeup. Each has a rabid fan base and history of doing brand collabs, but no one ever dreamed we would do anything together.

Breaking beauty boundaries is what drew e.l.f. Cosmetics to Liquid Death, and a shared passion for unpredictability and entertaining communities. The objective was to create the next beauty trend in line with both brands’ fearless approach to making bold statements.

We created a limited release Corpse Paint makeup vault for sale through the e.l.f. website. But beyond just a gorgeous collector’s item, we dropped a hilariously unhinged, nostalgia-drenched launch video made to take Instagram and TikTok by storm.

Liquid Death’s strategy is simple: Be the best thing someone sees that day. e.l.f.’s philosophy is simply: Why the e.l.f. not? Together, we wanted to make a truly hilarious collaboration that could bring people joy. Too many brand collaborations are random for random sake. The world doesn’t need any more gross ice cream flavors and the traditional logo swap is lackluster. We wanted to make something that both of our massive communities of 16M+ fans across Instagram and TikTok would genuinely enjoy. A Corpse Paint kit laid in the very small center of that Venn diagram.

We teased the collaboration the day before launch with a post, which left social media buzzing. But no one was ready when we dropped the launch video across both brand’s social channels and CRM. We knew the look of Corpse Paint would be instantly arresting in feeds so we also partnered with leading beauty influencers to blitz TikTok with very serious (but very funny) straight-faced “Get Ready With Me” Corpse Paint tutorials. And we even brought Corpse Paint to the real world by having model Julia Fox get captured out in the New York City streets sporting a Corpse Paint look of her own.

Corpse Paint took TikTok by storm. In the first day, it garnered around 24M views, making it the most successful piece of content both Liquid Death and e.l.f. had ever released. It also spawned hundreds of reaction videos, all of which were primarily positive. With any bold, headline making moment, there are those who feel against the idea. However, this only spawned even more reactions against those reactions and kept this single piece on top of feed for almost a week. Press coverage hit over 12B impressions within days, breaking into pop culture magazine coverage and even business trades. Paid media performed 81% higher than our benchmark goal, primarily driven by TikTok. And of course the Corpse Paint Coffins sold out completely in just 45 minutes.

e.l.f. and Liquid Death aim to entertain but never take themselves too seriously. Given the nature of this collaboration, humor was a key element to success but the approach made it unique.

In order to market this outlandish makeup trend, we had to take the bizarre and make it feel as if it was our normal. For the Corpse Paint look, influencers treated it as a normal makeup look through their “Get Ready With Me” content, further driving the eyebrow raising comedic aspect. This approach sent the internet buzzing when model Julia Fox sported the look while casually walking her dog.

We also knew that timing would amplify the humor of it all. If we launched this during halloween, it would have landed as a quirky costume look. We knew it would be even more comedic and unexpected to launch this on a random Tuesday in March.