The Drink Cart: Old Pals

This week is highs and lows. Kind of like Starbuck’s stock price. Or the back and forth rap battle between Drake and Kendrick. Rest assured this newsletter is a Met Gala free zone.

Opening hot take: Are Starbucks stores turning into mobile order pick up depot hellscapes? My local one features delivery cyclists cosplaying as a post-apocalypse bike gang from Mad Max.

Not sure having that outside your doors is going to create the experience people really want. Sure maybe the drop in stock is a Dune-like pumpkin spice conspiracy. For fun, I highly recommend reading the replies on Starbucks founder Howard Schultz’s Linkedin post.

Today in the “newsletter” we’ve got:

• Apple killing creativity, Don Draper returned and Wes Anderson hocks fancy pens.

• The Canadian Army and Smile Cookie fails.

• Some deep thoughts on time, expensive sporting endeavours and wine hats.

• And tell your intern, we’re mixing up Old Pals on the Drink Cart.

Ad highlights

We’re batting lead off with the new Apple iPad ad that is bringing the “end of all creativity.” Certainly that is what you would think if you read most of the reactions to Tim Cook’s announcement post. Is this “the worst ad ever” as i saw many times Twitter? Is it as actor Hugh Grant described, “The destruction of the human experience. Courtesy of Silicon Valley.” Is it “brutal to watch?” Should they fire the agency? Then there many instances of this: it’s been 40 years since the 1984 Super Bowl Commercial and now they are the Big Brother. Enter the Don Draper pitch meme into the chat.

This feels like a lot of pearl clutching from people way too deep into the bubble of advertising. Will there be insane Linkedin posts about marketing lessons from this? Probably. Should people get this worked up over ads from the company that just six months ago promised phones made from the rare metal from the "edge of the universe." Absolutely not. Or, and hear me out, It could just be the fun of smashing things into the thinnest computer of all time.

As usual the take from Ashwinn is measured, reasonable and shows the rational and positives of marketing the thinnest Apple thingy ever. Like him, I’d guess more people are seeing this ad and heard about the thin iPad than it would have if everyone liked the ad. (ie: 48M views on Cook’s Tweet.) So you know where I stand. I might even get one. Especially because of the landing page’s Ozempic-era headline, “Thinpossible.” (See more of my usual review of the new iPad website copy here.)

Don Draper lived in the extended Kellog’s universe and showed up in the new Jerry Seinfeld-directed Pop Tart movie, Unfrosted. Although the best line goes to Roger, “I’ve been in your city for six hours and you know what I see? Dead trees and sad, lonely women.” I do love that various fashion Twitterers were aghast at how bad the fit on Draper’s suit was.

I would place this one behind Air and BlackBerry but well ahead of the Cheetos movie, Flaming Hot. A second Hugh Grant reference here as his potrayal of Tony the Tiger is a revelation especially as he leads a mascot uprising to storm Kellog’s HQ in a funny January 6th type gag. Can you be an unhinged Tony the Tiger and also talk about The destruction of the human experience from an Apple ad?

Wes Anderson ads are the best. This new three minute short for the 100th Anniversary of MontBlanc’s legendary Meisterstück fountain pen is an instant classic. I love that they have fun with two taglines throughout. Apparently they also shot a bunch of alternate versions for different markets.

I still can’t believe that people spend north of $575 for one of these. The Anderson pens mentioned in the spot? Don’t worry, they are smartly limited editions to 1,969 (his birth year). Gulp, they are $2,500. To quote Max Fischer in Rushmore, “O, R they?”

I have no idea what is even happening, but this ad for Lahori Zeera, up on my feed all this week is beautiful in every frame.

Ad lowlights

I’m going all Canadian content this week. First up, the new Canadian Army branding was soft-launched on Friday with a tweet, “Introducing the revitalized branding for the Canadian Army!” But you wouldn’t understand, it’s really just a complementary brand mark - even though they changed their official social avatar. Then they quickly downgraded the rollout from branding to, “a new icon and refreshed tagline.” Then they retreated again saying it’s just going to be used it in the bottom corner of power points and maybe some videos. I think that’s worse.

As expected the army commander was pumped. Also expected? The social media response. An army of memes were out in full force. The Navy version. Is it moose droppings? Is it a retreat? The real problem is that this social reaction is just the beginning. Why does our Army that is underfunded already need new branding power point graphics? We now have to endure the phase of:

• How much this has cost tax payers.

• Which agency made it.

• God forbid we ever see the pitch deck.

Speaking of hilarious brand fails, the Tim Horton’s Smile cookies are undefeated in making us laugh. They just got bodied (again) on social for all looking like this. Don’t come at me in a rap battle like you’re Drake because these are all for charity. Get real. Most of them looked ridiculous. Can’t we do charity and make a solid cookie? Is that too much to ask? And some of these $2.30?

Warm your soul with the power of the internet reactions: The Sarah McLachlan treatment. From SNL, The Maharelle Sisters, an act from the Finger Lakes, consisting of three beautiful singers and Dooneese. And this one is just nightmare fuel. Like, what are we doing here? Shouldn’t the ads just show the crap ones then?

Lastly, I’ve seen a lot of videos like this recently. I think you could make these videos kind of a drinking game. Anytime the creator says, world building, community branding. personal branding is dead and story arcs, you drink. While you are black out drunk from this game you can now see the run club he profiles isn’t exactly Game of Thrones. That is world building. 4 influencers making t-shirts and hosting a run club? Not world building.

Things I can’t stop thinking about

The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole

The one thing I thought about most this week was from George Tannenbaum, “So we have mayonnaise companies making sneakers. Plastic cheese companies creating hair-dos. We have the world's largest plastic polluter advertising its cleanliness. The never-ending-ness of banality is never-ending.”

The whole article is about history being long. Building brands is just as long - no matter how many mayo-shoes you create and advertise. It’s about thinking beyond just a single dopamine brand hit on social media.

It reminds me of this great bit from Charlie Wilson’s War (2007). The wonderful Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gust Avrakotos, telling the story of the Zen master and the little boy. “We’ll see.”

Other things occupying my brain matter:

• Waves of nostalgia remembering a time when there was giant Oreos. What a time to be alive.

• The Most boring video ever. A 1989 Microsoft Word Tutorial. It’s racked up over 3 million views. At nearly 2 hours long, people are watching this to fall asleep.

• A deep dive into re-watching 1996’s Bio-Dome. Turns out Bud and Doyle were real jerks. I am shocked.

• The tagging of insults on Drake’s house in Google maps is everything.

• My head is currently either opening a cute Gnocchi shop at Stackt or wanting to franchise Tiger Woods PopStroke. Thoughts?

• If you want a good podcast that features a lot of Hollywood stories and tales of Johnny Carson and Marcus Aurelius, then put this Bill Maher and Jerry Seinfeld podcast episode in your ear holes, if only for this great line on when to call it quits:

  “I think it will get to the point when I feel like I’m slowing down, and don’t have the same edge or enthusiasm anymore. And when I get to that point I’ll do 5 more years.” - Lorne Michaels

Totally self indulgent baseball, sports and gambling content

Can we talk about these prices seen at the F1 event in Miami this past week? $180 for nachos? In this economy? Who is eating a $190 fruit platter at a car race? Now these are suite prices for a platter, but anyone who thinks we’ve curbed inflation needs to eat some $180 nachos.

• Of course Snoop Dogg is sponsoring his own college Bowl Game.

• I absolutely love this Field of Dreams park in France.

• I also really like the $15k Woodford Reserve Paddock Club Experience at the Kentucky Derby.

• Baseball is beautiful.

• Skip if you don’t want to learn about pop culture baseball cards: I guess this news of another Vanderpump alum getting the Allen & Ginter treatment means I’m in on getting some now?

• The rules of some Toronto park baseball diamonds are completely insane. No home runs?

• Whatever Product Manager enabled bank transfer on this slot machine should get a cut.

• Exit question: Would you order this $32.99 Boomstick Triple Play? It’s Nachos, an 8 inch Double Burger and a foot long chilli cheese dog in a carrying case? Answer: yes.

• Gonna leave you with this insane tour of Eddie Vedder’s Clubhouse and talk of baseball collectables.

Hat of the Week

This is the Viñeros de Tri-City of the Tri-City Dust Devils hat. Wine hats are just cool. I post because they still don’t have my size. But I also post because the Blue Jays may have to start doing promos like this one: A Sip & Paint game. $45 bucks includes your ticket, 2 drinks and all your paining supplies.

Last call: The Drink Cart Presents, The Old Pal

Is the ad agency business a lot like being a baseball fan? Max Mannis got me thinking after a rough weekend of baseball: “Baseball fandom is just willingness to commit to alternating between ‘the season is over’ and ‘we are so incredibly back’ on a nightly basis for six months.”

This week - we listened to a podcast about an offshoot of the Boulevardier which is an offshoot of the Negroni. Kind of a metaphor for culture today if you’ve seen this clip about copies of copies of copies.

The cocktail created by Harry MacElhone, the proprietor of Harry's New York Bar in Paris in the 1920’s. Legend has it that the cocktail was named for William “Sparrow” Robinson, the sports editor for The New York Herald in Paris. Robinson liked the bars of Paris and generally called everyone “old pals”. I like the cut of his jib!

Although originally made with the sweet vermouth, the drink is now more famous with the french style dry. I love everything about this origin story. I would watch a six-part HBO show about that bar, that time, Old Pals and Sparrow Robinson bar hopping around Paris.

The Old Pal

• 1 oz Rye (Note: I agree that a 2:1:1 ratio and heavy-ing up the whiskey is worth it to balance the Campari even more - It’s like a wonderful bitter red martini).

• 1 oz Campari

• 1 oz Dry Vermouth (that’s the French, white vermouth)

• Stir with ice until it’s super chill. Put it in a cute frozen coupe glass and throw a little lemon twist in there. Drink.

Let me know what you think of this weeks newsletter in the comments. Give me some comments or subscribe, or I’ll record a dis track so miserable to celebrate our rap beef you’ll never recover. Don’t make me do it.

The Drink Cart is a weekly newsletter cocktail of advertising from Jackson Murphy, interesting things that will haunt your dreams, pop culture, baseball and even a drink from the cart after a long week.