Liquid Death is BS: Ulli Appelbaum on Memory, Ritual, and the Science of Brand Love | The ADOTAT Show

What do frozen pizza pilots, Febreze rituals, and Liquid Death have in common? According to brand strategist Ulli Appelbaum, they all prove one thing: your brand isn’t a logo—it’s a neural network firing in your consumer’s brain.

In this episode, Pesach Lattin sits down with Ulli, founder of First the Trousers Then the Shoes, to strip branding down to its underwear and rebuild it with science, scent, and a splash of sarcasm.

💡 Highlights:

• The Red Baroness: How turning a WWI pilot into a mom’s wingwoman made frozen pizza cool again.
• Brand as a neural network: Why your consumer’s brain is basically your brand’s hard drive.
• Febreze & ritual marketing: The psychology behind that final “clean” spray.
• The Liquid Death illusion: When cool branding hides an empty can.
• Purpose vs. pretense: Why Ulli calls corporate virtue signaling “lazy strategy in yoga pants.”
• Science over slogans: The 26 “association levers” that make memory your most valuable media channel.
• McDonald’s redemption arc: How emotional recall beats rational defense every time.

This is branding without the buzzwords—a masterclass in meaning, memory, and merciless honesty about what actually moves market share.

📚 From First the Trousers Then the Shoes to The Science of Brand Association, Ulli’s work merges cognitive science and marketing craft to prove that good strategy is just organized curiosity.

🧠 Watch it. Think differently. And maybe stop pretending your purpose campaign is saving the planet.

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