Whitney Cummings is a Hollywood multi-hyphenate, with acting, writing, stand-up comedy, podcasting and producing on her resume. And she’s added a new skill recently as a “board-certified plastic surgeon,” or so she says in a Liquid Death campaign.
Except that’s not true, of course.
Instead, she’s taking her first starring turn in a high-concept Liquid Death ad that mashes up a sustainability message with a ridiculous premise: Cummings, posing as a medical professional in a crisp white lab coat, presides over a surgery center that repurposes plastic waste, turning it into implants for butts, chins and calves.
Spoiler alert—Cummings dips into her own supply, showing off three sets of a certain body part in the video’s final reveal. “I’m not just a spokesperson,” she says, leaning into a cheesy old ad trope, “I’m also a client.”
As an investor in the company and longtime ambassador of the canned water brand, Cummings was a strategic fit for Liquid Death’s latest #DeathToPlastic crusade. And because she’s “hilarious, gregarious and super collaborative,” she was a creative match as well, according to Andy Pearson, the brand’s vice president of creative.
The brand didn’t want to take a typically earnest approach to an environmental message because consumers are “so desensitized to bad news,” Pearson told Adweek. Yet it wanted to confront a myth—not all plastic trash gets recycled; only about 5% does, per the brand—and offer a farcical solution that involves putting the other 95% to work in the beauty industrial complex.
“If you want to reach people, make them laugh about something built on a nugget of truth,” Pearson said. “And there’s nothing stupider than the idea that we can solve the plastic pollution problem by having everyone shove beach plastics inside of our body cavities.”
Cummings, a self-described ad nerd who has previously appeared in spots for fin-tech player Affirm and birth control system Annovera, spoke to Adweek about curating her endorsements, speaking her mind and finding the “secretly wholesome” underbelly of Liquid Death.
Adweek: Did you have a hand in developing the “Recycled Plastic Surgery Center” spot, and what appealed to you about the idea?
Whitney Cummings: I had zero want or need to shape the spot comedically—I loved how dry and absurdist it was. And my instinct as a comedian is usually to be more hard joke-driven, so I tried to keep my clown brain away from it as much as I could so it could stay as weird and satirical as possible. I also spent most of my time on the spot getting four extra fake boobs, so I had to spend most of my energy trying to not send selfies to exes.
AW: How do you decide which brands you’ll work with and which offers are non-starters?
WC: At a time where it’s so tempting to take every partnership that comes along, I am very careful. As much as this will make me sound like a jerk, I do often eye-roll when I see a celebrity do what seems like a money grab. If it feels like I’m the perfect person for the campaign, I consider it. I call out corporations all the time, so I never want to be in a situation where I feel like if I take a partnership with a brand, I’ll be silenced or censored in any way. No amount of money is worth being silenced as a comedian—we already have enough people and corporations telling us what we can and can’t say.
AW: If you can readily name the Snapple lady, the Budweiser frogs and “wassup” guys and KFC FCK, you must really be steeped in advertising lore?
WC: I am such a commercial dork—growing up, I wanted to be in commercials more than anything. Dead serious. It’s where all the happy families and perfect kitchens were. I’ve always wanted to be part of spots that will stand the test of time and aim to entertain the audience. You have so little time to catch people’s attention these days, so I love working with people who understand that and would rather have a couple people wince than downright not notice it at all.
AW: How do you think the Liquid Death spot fits your brand?
WC: Liquid Death has a super edgy and cool aesthetic, yet secretly wholesome mission. I love that. The playfulness, the humor, the leaning into the lightness that can come from a dark side is so eye-catching and charming to me. I love that it’s given a healthy drink to sober people and teenagers who want to feel cool. As a teenager, all you want is to have a cool bottle in your hand at parties, and the only eye-catching bottles seem to have been jacked with caffeine or booze. All my friends who are sober drink it because it’s not advertising that you are a party pooper. I also love that it’s not plastic—it’s truly time for that nonsense to end, and they really walk the walk.
