Liquid Death dumps LiveRamp over Publicis deal: the data war begins

Liquid Death stopped using LiveRamp's identity graph in early August, weeks after Publicis Groupe's acquisition plan became public — and its LiveRamp contract expires at the end of the year. That timeline frames one marketer's very public search for a replacement, and a wider standoff over who gets to own advertiser data.

Benoit Vatere, chief media officer at the water brand, used the graph for about 18 months before pulling the plug. In an interview with Digiday, he framed the decision as straightforward.

"I don't want to train or have them see that super valuable information [for] anybody that I'm trying to get market share from," Vatere said.

LiveRamp's job was to recognize the same people as they moved between screens and sites — someone who saw an ad on a smart TV could be found again on a phone or a retailer's site. Over time, that revealed which ads actually drove purchases. Vatere is not worried about names and email addresses, since Publicis will not see personal information. He is worried about the buying patterns.

Publicis also works for brands Liquid Death competes with. Vatere fears those patterns could feed the holding company's AI tools and inform strategic calls for rivals. The deal's terms prohibit that today, but he expects terms to change — and the FTC's oversight of the deal lasts only five years.

"Let's be clear about why Publicis bought LiveRamp," Vatere said. "They did it because there is value, right? And the value is not just the revenue."

Which providers are ruled out?

Vatere's stance eliminates every holding company with designs on an identity graph. That rules out Havas, still a LiveRamp user, WPP, and Omnicom, which is building its own alternative. Omnicom's Acxiom has already pitched him; he sent it packing on the same grounds.

"I'm not mad at Publicis. I just don't want any of the holdcos to own it," Vatere said.

That leaves independent providers, and he is not naive about them either. Most are built with an acquisition and an exit in mind. Whichever one he picks must sign a contract that ends the relationship and deletes Liquid Death's data the moment control changes hands.

"There should be a clause [that] if there's change of ownership, change of control, contract out, right? Data deleted, like the whole thing," Vatere said.

He has a deadline of sorts, and little leverage. Liquid Death is not big enough to build its own graph. "I cannot do without it right now," he said.

How much does this actually cost LiveRamp?

Rivals have been fielding calls since the deal was announced in the spring, and several suitors have already reached Vatere's DMs after he posted his stance on LinkedIn. One connection request came from LiveRamp's own CEO. Nothing has come of it. The only thing that would win Vatere back is LiveRamp pulling out of the deal — and, in his view, that ship has sailed.

Both WPP and Omnicom have already stopped working with LiveRamp. The financial exposure, however, looks limited: competitors and non-Publicis businesses account for roughly 5% of LiveRamp's $800 million annual revenue — about $40 million a year, roughly one dollar in twenty.

A few defections at the edges are a price the holdco can afford to pay. Whether marketers peel away in numbers large enough to change that sum remains an open question. Publicis likely wants LiveRamp's data and connections for its own AI ambitions, combining LiveRamp's clean room and data connectivity tech with the identity capabilities of Epsilon and the tech services of Publicis Sapient.

Is the conflict concern overblown?

Not everyone shares Vatere's urgency. Ruben Schreurs, CEO of Ebiquity, called the fear somewhat exaggerated.

"Advertising is an inherently zero-sum game. You need to beat your competitors to grow," Schreurs said. "Taking a uniform commoditized approach to communications or media is not a good strategy."

But sharing an identity graph with rivals, he argued, is not the act that jeopardizes a brand's edge. "I do think it's a little overplayed," he added. "You can absolutely manage things in a way that if [your] agency also works for competing brands, that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. The same is true with LiveRamp."

His caveat: advertisers have less and less optionality as the market contracts. "Clients absolutely care about conflict, how conflict is managed, but they have less and less optionality," Schreurs noted. "There is now a big global three to choose from."

Advertisers have spent years investing in cloud infrastructure, customer data platforms and first-party data systems to retain ownership of customer information. Marketers like Vatere may find that ownership harder to keep than to build, as the pool of truly independent identity providers keeps shrinking.