The Drink Cart: Splash Zone
No running on the pool deck kids and absolutely no swimming in the city, it's super gross. But don't you worry, we've got a sneak peak at Christmas in Julyđ
Good news everyone. June is almost over and we are in that rare time of year when only baseball matters. Wait, there are two competing football tournaments that make for some great watching and if youâre really pressed for content - tonightâs Presidential Debate should be worth a Drink Cart cocktail or three viewing.
Here are a few quick opening takes:
My FYP is full of these wonderful 1980s saxophone montage Tiktoks. And I love them. My favourite is captioned: âThis song reminds me of that cold case I never cracked as a detective in NYC in the winter of â83 (I was also born in â88 and never lived in NYC a day in my life.â
If you had this phone in the 90s you were the coolest.
Triscuit rebranded and thankfully they still taste great. I didnât notice a single difference when purchasing.
Did I really read this lengthy exploration into Bennifer 2.0 this morning? You betcha.
Lastly, for the Tennis people, this 2017 Pimms Wimbledon Rube Goldberg machine is amazing. Damn, should have suggested a Pimms this week. Too late.
Todayâs ânewsletterâ is a bit of a summer mystery box of random culture and advertising:
Weâve got anti-travel ads, zombie brands and AI origin stories and AI hellscapes
Mascots, mascot brand crossovers and brand crossovers with crocs
A special break down of Summer Christmas Hallmark premiers
Weâve also got dog hats and the rummiest of rum cocktails to make the icky feeling of doing timesheets when itâs 30 outside go away.
1. Swimming in the middle of the city? Itâs disgusting
This Visit Oslo campaign by NewsLab, is very special. The driest of dry humour for a tourism ad told by someone completely unimpressed by the city. What a way to sell a city.
2. Croc x Porsches Sport Mode
This is what I like about advertising right now. For every Porsche Tiktok collab with Crocs that piles up 7.1 million views in 5 days and is celebrated by someone on Linkedin for scoring 878k likes, 6,300 comments and 78k saves. There is an army of people in their comments with some variety of, âAckchyually, Gen Zâs donât buy Porschesâ followed by others responding, âYouâre so wrong, itâs making Porsche aspirational for themâ and then someone else chimes in with âNo, this is making Gen Z want to buy Crocs, not Porsches.â
I just had my bowl of popcorn and am watching the sparks fly. Itâs wildly more entertaining than whatever Windex is doing on my feed this week.
3. Irrelevant toy store brand does origin story with AI
ToysâRâUs, which The Verge called a Zombie brand, shared a teaser video using OpenAIâs Sora. âIt depicts a young Charles Lazarus, founder of ToysâRâUs and creator of Geoffrey the Giraffe, dreaming of a magical place that will change toy stores forever.â
Not only does it look like some sort of knockoff or Zombie Pixar, does anyone care about what is arguably the most mid of mascots, Geoffrey the Giraffe? I bet you werenât expecting a hot take about Geoffrey, but here we are. So this Lazarus guy changed toy stores forever, until nobody cared about toy stores anymore. Got it. Needless to say, agency world insiders were hella mad.
4. Christmas in July
Trigger warning. When you started reading this newsletter, I would imagine the terms and conditions failed to flag that there may - from time to time - be some Hallmark content. Surprise, Surprise. Itâs here. Now that that is out of the way, we can jump right into the new holiday movies dropping on Hallmark starting next week for their annual, and completely ridiculous Christmas in July. Yes, Hallmark drops all new Christas stories in July.
Youâve been warned and Drink Cartâs diligent legal department is no longer slacking me in all caps about this âbait and switchâ content. So Iâm now going to go ahead and rank this yearâs offering for you using Christmas Trees emojis out of 5. Youâre welcome.
Three Wise Men and a Baby: Extended Cut - đ
Fine, I like the 1987 film call back, but this is my least favourite Hallmark format. I want small town romance, not three dudes babysitting in elf suits.
Rescuing Christmas - đđ
The only thing I like less than babysitting in the Hallmark universe is magic. Using wishes to wish away Christmas? Borderline sacrilege.
Falling Like Snowflakes - đđđ
A lot of promise in this one. A photographer on a mission to capture a rare photo of a 12-sided snowflake with the help of a childhood friend. Oh my.
An Ice Palace Romance - đđđ
Stop the presses! You had me at, âA journalist faces old fears when she returns to her hometown ice rink to cover a story.â
A Very Vermont Christmas - đđđđđ
Ho Ho Ho! This one is the holiday home run. This has everything you want from a Hallmark Christmas offering. A champion skier. A Local brew master (Leave that hot chocolate for the kids!). They are of course an âunlikely matchâ (read: hate each other for 75% of movie) to make a seasonal microbrew! Oh, that microbrew has to save the family business by Christmas. Chefs Kiss.
5. Green Pants Unifying Theory
If you missed out on Cannes, you must have missed out on the ability in the future to buy the green pants that someone is wearing in the video you are watching. As if Hollywood didnât have enough problems in getting people to watch content they will be in a constant state of shopping.
This sounds just like a new streaming hellscape. A hack I have is, that if Gary Vaynerchuk is over the top pumped about something - especially ad tech - itâs best to take the other side of the bet.
6. The Bacon Sandwich Shop
I want to jump on this idea right now. Rory Sutherland is a great follow and person to hear. Just a hot take factory. And this idea is so great there would be lines around the block for sure. Iâm certain that builders tea is not my cup, but everything else is on the level. And as someone who has only had real bacon maybe 2 times in the last year or so, it sound divine. Whoâs with me?
7. Absolute Brand Chaos
Have you been following the strange collaboration between the New York Mets and McDonaldâs? Long story short: On June 12th, after a disasters start the baseball season, Grimace threw out the first pitch at a game. The Mets then went on a 7-0 tear. They have lost a couple times since then, now at 11-2. Still a great run and they just beat the Yankees the last two nights. Memes. Social posts. Shirts. None of it has stopped.
They even lit up the Empire State Building in Grimace-Mets theme on Tuesday. By last night, off-brand Grimaces are chugging beers during rain delays. And yes, this is a second item about Mascots. Two intersting side notes: 1. Grimace and Mets seem to be strictly an X platform thing. X is all sports. 2. Has McDonaldâs lost control of the mascot to a baseball team?
The Drink Cart Debate: But on multiple podcasts and articles, Iâve seen lines like this, âHeâs also a purple amorphous blob named Grimace who is better known for hawking hamburgers.â Wait what? An amorphous blob? McDonaldâs insisted, in a 2012 Tweet, that he is the âembodiment of a milkshake.â A purple shake? Outrageous.
And everyone knows heâs a taste bud right? Letâs just say this is something that is unsettled. And Iâm not some sort of Grimace truther or anything like that, but heâs tastebud and Iâll take that to my grave or fight you about it.
8. A very special set of design skills
This cracks me up. A designer is including tracings of Liam Neesomâs head shape on his designs. In this example of car sharing brand GoMoreâa how page, his Nessom head shape has become an island.
9. Hat of the week: Binghamton Grumble Pugs
This is just shameless callback time. Remember the Mets and Grimace stuff? Welp, turns out their Double A team, the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, also has a mascot named Marvelous Marvin the Pug.
And on his birthday on August 17th, the team will play a game as the Binghamton Grumble Pugs. And the only thing better than one pup is three - a "grumble" of pugs as everyone should know is 3 or more pugs in a group. Now you know.
10. Last call: The Drink Cart Cannes Punch
Originally I wanted to share a cocktail that was purple in honor of Grimace. Then I was inspired by that Oslo story and the time I visited a Tiki bar there and if memory serves, had $45 cocktails - because nothing is cheap in Norway. But as you can imagine, the list of purple cocktails is limited. So the logical choice was as the monsters here are seen enjoying, a Hurricane. This is the signature cocktail of New Orleans, now an iconic Tiki staple.
The origin story? Not as muddled as some. When whiskey was hard to come by in World War II, the bartenders of Pat OâBrienâs improvised with a large overstock of rum. And mostly what you gotta respect about the Hurricane - and what makes it ideal for an ad agency drink cart - is the powerful kick that can only come from four ounces of rum in each drink. Kaboom.
The Drink Cart: Hurricane
2 oz light rum
2 oz dark rum
2 oz passion fruit juice
1 oz orange juice
½ oz fresh lime juice
½ tablespoon simple syrup
½ tablespoon grenadine
Garnish: you better believe you need that stupid chunky orange slice and fluorescent cherry
After exactly one Drink Cart Hurricane:
Bottoms up! What did you think of this weekâs newsletter? Drop me a comment or question below or tell me how your Hurricane turned out.
The Drink Cart is a weekly newsletter of advertising, pop culture, baseball and cocktails from Jackson Murphy.











Nice round up Jackson. I was hoping to see the ToysâRâUs ad in thereâŚ
Okay, I want to go to Oslo now, but I want to hang out with that guy when I'm there!