The Drink Cart: Sweater Weather
It's officially fall. If you're not working on campaigns that feature snowflakes by this point or New Year's resolutions, are you even in advertising?
Dear Drink Carters. Do not adjust your inbox settings, this is just a weird fall image from the depths of Midjourney. Is it a giant sweater in space? Just go with it. Rejoice in the knowledge that today’s newsletter was too packed to include my first stab at the line of 2024 Hallmark Holiday movies. But Holiday movies are coming. No 700 foot wall can stop me. Yule love it, I promise. But before you get there, polish up your spooky brand selling voice.
To get you in the spirit, I want you to read the rest of this newsletter in the voice of John Facenda from this iconic 1974 NFL film for the Oakland Raiders. “The Autumn Wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea, With a rollicking song, he sweeps along, Swaggering boisterously.”
Speaking of pirates, comedian John Mulaney took $2 million from Salesforce and proceeded to roast them like crazy. This was my favourite quote, “You look like a group who look at the self-checkout counters at CVS and thought, ‘This is the future’”. Strap yourself in folks, this Drink cart is a doozy.
This week we got you covered with everything you need to know:
The weirdest brand Tiktoks or that Oktoberfest has an official brand
Wallpaper apps, smug copywriting, Moo Deng content and nepo hot sauces
Gin in oil cans, perfect media placements and cartoon villains
Plus hats from Oakland, a sweater weather sour and a tale of 2014 agency pumpkin flavoured excess
1. Weirdtok
Everyone seems to be talking about whatever Nutter Butter is doing on social right now. It’s weird. Play that video with the off-putting caption of, “it is unknown”. But the weird is going gangbusters. And now that people are talking about it, surely the end is near.
According to Buzzfeed, their last 14 Tiktoks have 70 million views and counting. And Rachel Karten from Link in Bio tells it like this, “Despite people just now discovering Nutter Butter’s accounts, the brand has been dedicated to their cryptic strategy for well over a year.
If you scroll back on Nutter Butter’s Instagram or TikTok to early 2023, you’ll notice a shift away from regular brand memes and trends to a strategy that feels a lot like their current one.”
The whole thing is incredible. Getting a brand to let you do and be this weird for a year deserves a job well done.
2. The Official Branding of Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest is one of those funny things. It starts in September. That’s weird. Don’t tell Nutter Butter. My social feed is already in full Oktoberfest content mode as we speak. I’ve talked about going for years, so it’s only a matter of time.
Apparently they rolled out a new logo (it’s first) and brand back in 2022. If I had a list o all-time best things to rebrand, this would be in top ten for sure. But I am surprise on where the logo ended up. The designers shared that, “Oktoberfest is so colorful and multi-layered that no single pictorial sign could do justice to these different facets – be it the beer mug, the heart or the Ferris wheel. Rather, it should be abstract, open to interpretation and atmospheric.”
It just needs to be more fun. And the first thing i’d think about doing is taking a longer look at revamping their merch - the baseball hats are both insanely priced ($67) and not very cool. Huge opp right there. Sign me up.
3. When wallpaper apps become self aware
Marques Brownlee, a tech reviewer with quite a reputation, seems to have burnt it to the ground making a laughably silly wallpaper app called Panels. Immediately the internet did its thing.
If at this point you are asking, do people really pay for their phone wallpapers? You are not alone. The criticism of reviewer turned maker was swift. Some even suggested he didn’t go far enough. “Hear me out: Luxury wallpapers.”
TL; DR: First, people are mocking the price: “You can now spend $120/yr to get HD access to the exclusive ‘Orange’ wallpaper.” The reaction memes of Free orange Wallpaper were unforgettable. The receipts on Brownlee are hilarious. Don’t worry there is lovely ad version you can try too. Next, people almost instantly questioned why a wallpaper app needed your location and had an insane amount of app data tracking. Wait, the app isn’t even natively built?
The question some are asking, is this for some sort of long-term content play about how hard it is to build things?
4. Smug Copywriting Never Goes Out of Style
Want to Feel Superior? Just Read the Copy for this new project from Jony Ive, sorry Sir Jony Ive. Sir Jony has found the time to grant us some completely ridiculous down jackets starting from just $2440 each. I’m not one to besmirch a little outrageous luxury. If you can find a sucker to buy a three thousand dollar coat, I love that for you. Yes, I know Ive also redesigned the button for these. Can’t you just literally hear him saying this, “We did months and months of fastener research and button research before we even started drawing anything.”
In this case it's the product descriptions that are making me cringe. Don’t worry, these Kendall Roy outerwear classics are, according to the website just a super cute way to celebrate “friendship, innovation and the power of creativity." That’s just an incredible way to sell a coat.
But wait, there’s more. When you are thinking about the packaging of a $3,115 jacket, there is nothing that would be more disappointing than being wowed by this extremely smug detail: "The jacket comes in innovative packaging created by folding a single piece of paper."
5. Brands, You never have to go full Moo Deng
This is your regular public service announcement that you do not need to jump into every single trend or meme floating around the internet. Yes, I used some Moo Deng content last week, but I was already cautioning brands from jumping too far into this.
But then I see NFL teams like the Buffalo Bills dropping this on social with the caption “MOOD(eng).” I’m sorry I fail to see how that’s supposed to resonate with sports fans.
6. We do not need to spice it like Beckham
Oh great. David Beckham’s son is launching a whole brand of celebrity sauces. Cloud 23 - named after Dad’s jersey number and selling on Amazon for $14.99. Which is likely a fair price for “Hot Sauce Elevated.” Now, I really want to hate the website, but it’s all really well done. I hate when that happens.
7. Gin, but make it like motor oil
I was intrigued by a Linkedin post about this Italian gin that looks like motor oil. Is it disruptive and distinctive in a sea of sameness? Or is making food remind you of gasoline a turn off? The website being designed as a gas station seems to make me think the later. Gin but more like Olive oil, I’d get, but motor oil? I think someone has been sniffing too much gasoline in a plastic bag.
It’s all in that inspiration in the about section cut from some sort of mood boar, “Engine celebrates an imaginary made of oil and fuel cans, motocross races and racing vehicles, in memory of the great myths of the 1970s and 1980s like the timeless Ford custom-painted Gran Torino from TV show Starsky and Hutch or Clint Eastwoods 1972 Ford Gran Torino. From the world of cars, straight into your glass.”
Ddon’t get me wrong - there’s a market for doing flash-style websites like this that I absolutely love, but it takes so long to load anything you feel like you’re still in peak-flash. Do not recommend.
8. When you nail the placement for something
This perfectly placed, unconventional TV series ad for Netflix’s The Perfect Couple was posted in the wedding section of the New York Times. Love seeing what the team from Fonzie is doing copywise. 10/10 placement and story.
9. The Villains of our time
Sports owners kinda suck. Following sports teams can feel like they are, “an experiment created by some ivy league university psychology department whose purpose is to measure how long people can be tortured until they break.” This is the story of the Oakland Athletics. Who’s owner John Fisher has unlocked platinum villain status reserved only for vintage Batman TV characters with long cigarettes. Maybe sports owners like Fisher are like Jack Nicholson’s Joker in this iconic scene taking over Gotham Museum to the score of Prince.
Right to the last series, Fisher has gaslit the city and fans saying he tried his best, but somehow couldn’t build a new stadium, so the team has to leave. No wonder fans are holding up signs with the timecode for the specific scene in Ted Lasso where Rebecca goes ham on the other club owners. As one fan was overheard saying on the second to last game in Oakland, “It’s like a playoff game crossed with a funeral.” The fact that this hat was on sale this week tells you everything you need to know about the owners of the A’s.
And how can you not be romantic about baseball when the groundskeepers are letting fans getting a little dirt from the stadium after 56 years. Or when current manager and former player Mark Kotsay takes a walk with his wife in the field he once patrolled. Maybe the taking out the seats is a little much.
Saying goodbyes in public is hard. Take time to watch the last moments for the Montreal Expos before they moved. For teams and players. This week, long time Rockies player Charlie Blackmon announced his retirement. While it could be that I’m watching House of the Dragon Season 2, or that he looks like he’s from central Westeros casting, his 3-part goodbye to fans sounds like he was joining the Night’s Watch and going way north North of the Wall.
Which only got me thinking that both the A’s and Blackmon and the market for an agency that only does the goodbyes. Here’s my pitch for $10 million valuation. The agency is: Retired Jersey Inc. The agency tagline: Honouring the close of every chapter in the game. Who’s in?
10. Hat of the week: Tribute to the Oakland A’s
To honour the Oakland Athletics on their last week in the city this week, we are going full A’s. And that is hard, since I’m still not over them just walking away with the 1989 World Series - this hat is a hate crime. But I’ve always liked their alternate Elephant logo so this cheeky 2024 Clubhouse Low Profile 59Fifty fitted does the job. Although the Batting Practice version is legit too.
Last call: The Drink Cart Sweater Weather Sour
The Sweater Weather Sour was something that I found while arguing with ChatGPT over fall cocktails and then finding something similar online. That also involved discovering that there is a whole company that just does drinkable glitter - you know if you should ever (Liam Neeson voice) need such a company with a very specific set of skills.
Drink Cart Agency Story time: Since it’s Octoberfest season, I thought I’d share a tale that is Drink Cart related. Nearly a decade ago, in our Vancouver office we got swept up in the first wave of pumpkin spice mania and pumpkin spiced everything. Ugh.
We decided to culminate that in a mixer for staff we called Pumpkintoberfest. Now it’s agency legend. Here’s what’s in our intranet’s agency history, “We concocted the idea of Pumpkintoberfest. A mix of Octoberfest, Halloween, and generally just plain fun. Our first was hard to beat. There may or may not have been a 3:00 am street fight. Those were the days.“
Here’s a little more of the story. It started innocently enough, our shopping list that was emailed to me included, “1. Pumpkin Beers 2. Pumpkins for carving 3. Sausages (Bratwurst) 4. Mustard 5. Bread/Pretzels 6. Sauerkraut. Wild Card: Black Forest Cake”
There’s no way we ended up with Black Forest Cake. But we cooked up sausages - if memory serves we had these awful convection burners that were near impossible to use. You either burned things in 2 seconds or took an hour to cook a sausage. And we had every absolutely stupid kind of pumpkin beer you can imagine. And there was pumpkins to carve. Thankfully, Google remembers the calendar invite from our ACD at the time featuring the cryptic - and maybe even Nutter Butter-esque description that simply read: “Remember, It only feels weird if you're not drunk.”
What’s that emoji, Astonished Face? You really can’t make that up. 2014 was certainly a different time, especially without HR. But Google never forgets. Sidebar: Today you sometimes can’t even get your full team out for something that’s 1/10th as tame as that. But everyone showed up that night.
Let’s be honest, the pumpkin beers are not very good. Nevertheless, our brave team soldiered on and drank pretty much every last one. A good time was had by all. I’m sure it was so good that we were unwisely touching our partner Sandy’s record collection with impunity until the wee hours (Dang, wee hours is such a funny thing to say).
CUT TO: Some of the team saying good byes and such downstairs outside the office on Cordova Street. Our ACD’s laptop bag was stolen right under our feet. A scramble, some words, a few punches were thrown, a nose was bloodied, a comically silly melee unfolded, and the laptop was even recovered, I think. And believe it it not, we decided it was a totally fine idea to do it all again the next year. Although our 2015 invite this time did caution against any street shenanigans.
True story there is still a few ounces of rare Pumpkin Spiced Whiskey in a bottle from our Toronto Office’s first Pumpkintoberfest in 2015. I look at it often, and am reminded of that first night nearly a decade ago. It reminds me of why ad agencies are one of the funnest things to have ever been created and why I’m still so glad to have been dumb enough to help start one nearly 15 years ago. To The Drink Cart, Robin!
Anyway, here’s my take on the Sweater Weather Sour:
2 oz rye whiskey
1 oz cranberry juice
1/2 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 oz ginger syrup (you can buy some) or giver on some ginger bitters and little simple syrup. Don’t have that, pop some ginger ale in there. I won’t tell.
Lets be honest your agency bar is not going to have candied ginger for garnish, and that’s okay. They won’t have cranberries either. Just don’t worry about it and drink up.
Shake it with ice and strain over better ice.
Your Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
So we live in a world of Ozempic (and you can dress up as that for Halloween). And we have a new line of “grab and go” breakfasts like mini pancakes with “Sprinkle Butter” and “Chocolate Chip Butter.” Discuss.
Should I work on creating a chain of higher end Golfcart drive through bars?
I’d devote at least one Sweater Weather to discussing this branding for this landscaping company, Scapegoats. Stunning.
This week’s inspiration: Just work.
Worthy of one more to contemplate this thought experiment: “i would watch a documentary exploring how mr brightside became sweet caroline for millennials”
Think about the Roman Empire? Add this podcast episode about Tiberius Gracchus and parallels to today’s election to your playlist, or that Spanish galleons finaly passed into the Thames under the Tower Bridge. discuss over a cocktail.
What did you think of this week’s newsletter? Drop me 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.
I agree that Brooklyn Beckham‘s sauce site looks great. And the photos are well done. I just don’t really get the brand. It doesn’t feel like it fits his brand, even with the jersey number reference. Why the clouds? Why the baby angels?
expos 💔