DNA in a beverage can

Today I’m asking, if you were ridiculously famous, would you sell your DNA via a beverage can?

That’s possibly the most bizarre question I’ve posed in a blog before, but that’s exactly what the ‘Prince of Darkness’ Ozzy Osbourne has done, in partnership with canned water brand, Liquid Death.

Now sold out, the ten iced tea cans (sold for $450) that Osbourne drank from and crushed, presumably in ‘heavy metal legend’ style, were being marketed as ‘Infinitely Recyclable Ozzy.’

It’s certainly an attention-grabbing campaign, but rather a confusing one. The metal packaging industry will rejoice at the wording, ‘infinitely recyclable,’ and the advert for the campaign also infers that owning Osbourne’s DNA could (unrealistically) mean you’d be able to clone him. Yet the whole point of the cans is that they’ll be used as keepsakes for fans or collectors, therefore not technically recycled and added back to the infinite loop. The cans are also packaged inside a plastic container – which does make sense for visual purposes and preservation of the DNA, I suppose. The label on the front of the container denotes an ‘official DNA sample’ and holds Osbourne’s signature for even more official proof.

Liquid Death’s iced teas are sold in 12oz six- and 12-packs, 19.02oz single- and eight-packs in the US. Time will tell how successful the uniquely strange campaign was in boosting sales of the cans themselves, but either way, it has been an entertaining one to read about!

Osbourne will be holding his final performance along with his band Black Sabbath on 5 July in Birmingham, England, during the Back to Beginning benefit concert.

In more sane news, we’ve just gone to press on the July edition of the magazine, so keep your eyes peeled for that. It seems like I say this every other blog, but time sure does fly!

• Alex Rivers (she/her), CanTech International editor
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