The Drink Cart: Inventing Hustle
We are now in the Post-Season baseball timeline, so between that and the passing of legendary player Pete Rose, we're talking hustle.
Dear Drink Carters.
The photo in the header was posted with the simple caption, “The inventor of hustle.” Pete Rose, the all-time hit leader, “Charlie Hustle”, was one of a kind. He passed away at 83 on Monday, still waiting for his call to the Hall of Fame. An invite that eluded him after being disgraced for betting on baseball. Which is rich given how many betting ads are seen within baseball today.
For me, it’s the way he played the game comes alive in this one quote, “I'd walk through hell in a gasoline suit to play baseball.” That is a passion you don’t see to much anymore - and certainly not in advertising. But let’s stick to the hustle. It embodies everything you want with an approach to your craft. “You'd be surprised how many shortcomings can be overcome by hustle.”
I think that is probably the most important thing i’ve learned after 20 plus years grinding in this business. Get up early. Work late. Hustle. I remember taking freelance calls in an agency’s boardroom at 7am once when the Head of Creative walked in and apologized. You don’t see too much of that anymore. And you don’t see many Pete Rose types anymore. I was thinking about that last night - questioning everything - like why in the hell was I writing a newsletter just before midnight last night. I must be crazy.
For Rose, he could hit the heck out of an ad too. Like this Zenith colour ad, an Atari ad with soccer great Pele, this mind-blowingly incredible 1986 Kool-Aid ad, or my personal favourite, his iconic Aqua Velva commercial from 1978.
Even Rose could take that hustle too far. During the the 12th inning of the 1970 All-Star game he brutally crashed into catcher Ray Fosse fracturing and separating his shoulder. It was an exhibition game. It didn’t matter. Rose always went all-out regardless of the situation. As we should with every brief we get.
Well time to step up to the plate, what started as a simple tribute to Pete Rose, unravelled like the Houston Astros in this year’s Wild Card and turned into 84% baseball content (It’s science!). I promise there is ad content in here - if you’re patient. But since we’re in a Cincinnati kind of mood, we can’t resist opening with this week’s theme song.
This week we got you covered with mostly things you don’t need to know:
Sausage roll swag, helmet and 80s themed cinnamon bun ads
Baseball pizzas, genies and pine tar incidents and old Pete Rose ads
Chicken Tender stories, Wild Card Social lessons and snacks
Plus we have Cincinnati Reds hats and Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned
1. Golden Swag
Would you pay nearly $65 for a pair of sausage roll earrings? That’s the power of a brand like Gregg’s that dropped these golden merchandise pieces last month. Having spent a lot of time the past week thinking about merch, seeing a sausage roll brand drop a line of jewellery is super interesting. Incredibly, it sold out in under an hour.
2. Don’t be a helmet Ad
MLB added ads to every batting helmet on every team in the post season. The reaction, was swift. One of my favourite follows, Cam Miller wrote, “Helmet ads. Gross.” Another read, “This is hideous and just amateur hour garbage. Another terrible decision by Manfred.”
I would love to have seen the deck to the brand showing this as such a unique brand opportunity - that may have cost upwards of $15 million. If they were expecting to hear things like, “I love the Strauss ad on the side of the helmet. Theres not enough ads in the stadium it really improves the game,” whoops. Instead, I’m sure their social team is dealing with reactions like this, “after this horrible intrusion and tacky placement of an ad on all the batting helmets, you can be assured they will never get a cent of my business.”
There are two types of companies. Ones that would buy ads on helmets during the playoffs. And ones that won’t. Chose wisely.
3. Elevating Cinnamon buns with 1980s Italian fashion?
I have a real soft spot for cinnamon buns. Sometimes I think I should be going all in on transforming the Drink Cart into only Hand Soap, Hallmark and Cinnamon bun content. Not sure if there is a niche for that - so let me know in the comments. I’m still mad there isn’t a close by, delivery-ready Cinnabon location near me since the peak of the pandemic. So then I see this campaign for a convenience store chain that completely creates a 1980s Italian fashion universe for the sole purpose of selling the delicious spicy buns ahead of Cinnamon Bun Day - conveniently today.
I think my favourite is this from the creative director Daniel Vaccino at agency Åkestam Holst in Ad Age, ““We ignored the fact that Swedish cinnamon buns have nothing in common with ’80s Italian fashion. As a matter of fact, we embraced it.” It’s a long walk, but such a fun world. Don’t sleep on the fake disco music video and even the fake record label - that’s some serious world building to communicate the buns being just $1 right there. Lesson: You have to go all the way. (Pete Rose would approve).
4. Pizza Diamond
So Taiwan’s Pizza Hut is on another level as and possibly have a second-generation MLB co-branded baseball field pizza. I have no idea what’s going on here on this website, but i want it real bad? Is there ever enough baseball themed pizzas?
5. When Celebrity & Brands Get it Right
I wasn’t expecting to write the words wish granting body wash genie this week, but here we are. To launch their new body wash line, they hired (I’m guessing boat load of money was exchanged here) Sydney Sweeney to be in a bunch of new spots. I am intrigued about this factoid in the Ad Age write up, “Dr. Squatch says 50% of men are unaware of the ingredients in their current body wash.” That seems very high. At any rate, this is the best use of a Genie since Shaq was in Kazaam in 1996.
I chose this spot above, as in a surprising twist of content, one of the scents is Pine Tar. So jokes on you, I snuck more baseball content in here. So let’s double down and share the greatest of baseball content about Pine Tar, the infamous “incident” in 1983.
6. Pete Rose Ad Archive
Thankfully my curiosity about the inner workings of Ohio chili has already filled my feed with teases of “Cincinnati-style 3-way” (spaghetti, chili, and cheese, obvs.) for years. But they came in clutch this week when Gold Star shared these vintage Pete Rose commercials for the brand that are like taking a blue pill back time machine.
They do not make ads, or sports stars for that matter, like that any more. And if you think I’m not procrastinating about finishing this newsletter off by surfing eBay for those sweet Pete Rose Action Glasses, you don’t know me and you would be very, very wrong.
7. Critical Chicken Tender Content
Emily Sundberg from Feed Me caught this after I completely missed it in my weekend reading. But we have just celebrated 50 years of chicken tenders and the New York Times went deep. Although, I wouldn’t have done them dirty by describing them as, “the floppy strips of white meat in a deep-fried crust.”
Can I share a brief story? Editor: Who is going to stop you? It’s your newsletter. I guess that explains how I snuck so much baseball content in this week. Anyway, after rather lengthy stint tending The Keg’s long forgotten Salad bar. I still laugh about how the Keg destroyed massive amounts of today’s favourite greenery, Kale that just decorated never touched three-bean salad for a few days before being thrown away. And I still remember coming home and smelling of blue cheese and vinegar after long shifts.
I eventually worked my way up to some prep cooking for the steakhouse. It was so long ago, that we even made the “Chicken Strips” from scratch. We pulled the tendons out, marinating them in seasoned milk wash and breaded them by hand. I made thousands of orders. My favourite part was making litres of curry mayo dip. Honestly, i still think of that dip. Way better than just plum.
Since this is already a long walk - and my newsletters are getting longer by the week - do you know the best part of prepping at The Keg, besides blasting music on a ghetto blaster at 6 am, hitting each other over the heads with cooking pans in some sort of WWE wrestling league and once playing a head bopping prep cook in a film? To do lists. The most satisfying thing about that job was not making escargot butter with an absurd amount of ingredients or washing potatoes. Nope, it was the mythical prep list. And crossing out every item before clocking out. All this satisfying work nostalgia happened while I started a new notebook and on the first page made a new list of things to do. And that’s my totally random chicken strip story.
8. Social Lessons From Playoff Sports
What is this madness? Technically this newsletter does bill itself as “a weekly newsletter of advertising, pop culture, baseball and cocktails.” So you’re telling me I can share more baseball content? Okay then. Here’s a timely and savage lesson in social media for a very short 3-game sports series. The Baltimore Orioles posted that first image October 1st when the post-season begins. Just one night later, the Kansas City Royals took that to a whole new level. Unreal trolling.
9. Snackstra Innings
I honestly tried not to add another baseball story. But the San Diego Padres are serving up food in a Post-Season car box. I don’t make the rules with this kind of stuff, but The Drink Cart Terms and Conditions and our legal team reminded me that we are legally obligated to talk about such things. This is the California Torta. Packaging really is everything these days.
10. Hat of the week: The Pete Rose Special
I didn’t know quite what to share. Post-Season hats are out, but was inspired by this 1988 Topps baseball card of Pete Rose. Less the hat itself, and just how ridiculous it was to wear your hat so damn high on your head. Late 80’s vibes for sure. Pair it with some flip down sunnies, like in this stunning Topps card, and we are in an amazing time-warp.
I chose the closest version of that hat featuring the 1990 World Series Patch. It’s worth noting that the Red’s manger that year, Lou Piniella, also wore the hell out of his hats that same way. Just feast your eyes on this gallery. That series was memorable for delivering a victory over the Oakland A’s a year after they defeated my Giants. But it was also the showcase of a trio of relievers known as “The Nasty Boys”. Sneaky, sneaky you can watch all about it here:
Last call: The Drink Cart PS Fashioned
Yeah, I know this is too much even for me. But it’s fall, and I made some of these last year during the playoffs, so I’m running it back. And keeping this part short and sweet.
Your easy Pumpkin Spiced Fashioned recipe
2 oz bourbon.
½ oz pumpkin spice syrup (You can buy some, or DIY by combining pumpkin puree, pumpkin spice mix, sugar and water - google it).
2-3 dashes of Angostura bitters.
Want to get cute? Don’t, but you can throw one of your year old cinnamon sticks hanging around into it with an orange slice.
Serve over ice and with playoff baseball, obviously.
Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
Start by debating the power of this 1990 Microsoft Excel ad.
Thinking about the fact that there was a set of Love Boat action figures. Seriously.
That presidents used to call in when sports milestones were achieved.
Do you ever think about how all the vehicles fit together in Battle of the Planets, or G Force or by it’s original name Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. Just me?
Admit it, this was the scariest ghost in Scooby Doo. His name was Space Kook.
And finally, this is how your creative brief finds me.
A final reminder to smash through whatever you have in front of you this week.
Drop a comment or question below or tell me how your weekly drink turned out.
The Drink Cart is a weekly newsletter of advertising, pop culture, baseball and cocktails from Jackson Murphy.
Jackson, we need the Keg’s long forgotten curry mayo dip recipe!
RIP Charlie Hustle. Forever an Expo.
PS I think I'm good with all hand soap content.