The Drink Cart: The Bestest Dog

It's been a tough week for Drink Cart's bi-peded human but culture and advertising will wait for no one. Not even when you've lost the best quadruped who ever dogged.

Dear Drink Carters. I don’t want to be a downer, but this week my wife and I had to say goodbye to our dog, Renly. He was such a large figure in our lives and I can’t believe how instantly quiet it is around Drink Cart headquarters. The boredom of coming home without his signature over-the-top greetings is real. Were we gone 17 days or was it just 5 minutes taking the recycling out. We’ll never know. In a small way I totally get how Teddy Roosevelt felt when he wrote this back in 1884 and I really wasn’t expecting that.

Like Khaleesi, Renly was known by many names. Ren. Reno. Renaroo. Dodo. Dodo Bear. Baby Bear. Little One. Buddy. Lil Bud. Bean baby. Fur monster. Monsieur. Prince. Princeling. There were many more names, just like the mother of dragons herself. Fitting for a dog that acted like he was royalty.

I will forever have the scars from a few bites to remind me of him every day. My tolerance for completely gross things increased roughly 387% just knowing him. I’m guessing that we’ll be finding his hairs in this apartment for the next decade too. Shockingly, vacuuming duties are already down 79%. I will always be a little limpy from that time I slipped and tore my quad on the ice while we were out for a winter walk. I joked that I think he was trying to get rid of me, but the reality was, he didn’t leave me that day - and he forever liked to sit on my legs during recovery and long after.

Renly didn’t really like humans. He sort of only barely tolerated us. He didn’t really like other dogs either. Unless they were Schnauzers. Those were his not-so secret favourite. And he hated any TV ads that featured any animals. Especially ones with cartoon bears. I can’t blame him. And he absolutely hated going the vet. It is worth a quick shoutout to the team at the Central Toronto Veterinary Referral Clinic. I’m not sure how they deal with days like Monday everyday, but I’m so grateful that they were so wonderful and caring. But I’m glad he never has to go to another one ever again.

I’ve been saying all week that having a dog is 97% the best thing ever. It’s just that that other 3% is completely and utterly heart breaking. I’m still very glad we got to spend so much time with this wonderful - as my wife always said, “TV pretty” - dog. The best part was having one last really good night where he ate as much human food as he possibly could.

So join me in pouring out some extra portions of liver treats while thinking of his love of swimming, all the special places where he found random bits of food - like “Noodle Park” - his favourite local toilets and places for “rollies” in honour of our four-legged bud.

Ok. now, let’s get on with the show.

This “newsletter” is more than just a tribute to a great dog, it has the amazing things in culture and advertising this week, including:

• Takedowns of Airbnb, too many frills and killer copywriting

• Rat taxis, iconic billboards, egg salad content and influencer credibility issues

• Salsa hats, incredible bug spray ads and being very petty

• Plus, we’re mixing up our take on the Honey Deuce cocktail on the cart

1. This is How you take down Airbnb

The new VRBO spot featuring former NCAA Football coach Nick Saban is an incredible indictment of the Airbnb model. So many funny lines in here and great use of a sports icon. A few runner up ads this week go to the new Bud Light ad with comedian Shane Gillis and this bonkers Carmax BeetleJuice cross over ad. Both of them are 90 seconds. Are we back on 90 second ads?

2. Too Many Frills

One of the best lines this week was in response to the news that Loblaws is pushing even further into the ultra discount market. Stephen Punwas posted, “Loblaws determines No Frills is too many frills. To launch a negative frills brand.” Everyone does hate frills after all.

3. Great Moments in Copywriting

In 1982, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest challenge started. It encourages entrants to compose the opening sentences to the worst of all possible novels. This is the 2024 champion: “She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.”

Ouch. This is the kind of image even Grok won’t make. So I had to settle just for the speeding ham-hock which is pretty great.

4. Rat Taxis

Speaking of great. The result of the American election this year will comes down to a few swing states in places like the midwest. At the same time as Uncle Doomer says, “incredible things are happening in the american midwest.” And by incredible, we mean teaching rats how to drive small vehicles. This is the future.

5. Serious Billboard Envy

During the 1967 World Series, fans watched a game at Fenway on the Old Grand-Dad bourbon billboard. I want to make a billboard that people want to sit on.

While we are here on this great old booze billboard it’s worth checking out this 1962 Old Grand-Dad ad which featured a stone bust, two bottles and a passport to pleasure. Although this 1958 version which was “Head of the Bourbon family” was a-ok too. Turns out the brand was drunk by James Bond in Live and Let Die and these old ads are pretty great too.

6. The Bots Must Think We’re Insane

I’ve seen people talk about this Egg Salad machine photo quite a bit. Everything about it is everything that is wonderful about AI.

7. Influencer Credibility

@kaylieestewart#AD Zach and I are always on the go and we love to have our RITZ Peanut Butter Snackwiches with us for the perfect snack to go! #ritzcanada

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Can someone explain how anyone would really believe that these two influencers always pack Ritz crackers on their walks and stuff. Like who believes this at all? Not a chance they’ve ever packed a Ritz cracker in their life.

8. Hat of the week: Winston-Salem Salsa

It was tempting to talk about these Lids x Topps Player Chase Series 1 boxes but they are already sold out. While I have featured another hat from the Winston Salem Dash previously - the Italian Beefs hat. This time the High-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox is releasing their Salsa night hat to honour the Mexican community.

“The Mesoamerican-style salsa jar spotlights the historic origins of salsa while the two chips, shaped in the same manner as the Piedmont Triad area, represent the former twin cities of Winston and Salem bringing the community together.”

Bonus: Thankfully, there was Shohei’s dog Decoy throwing out the first pitch on their bobblehead day. I needed that. Badly.

9. Best Insect spray ad of all time?

This is one of the most amazing ads I’ve ever seen. No notes. Just respect.

10. Being petty, Tom Petty

This is absolutely the best. Apparently London’s National Gallery is doing some renovations of its Sainsbury Wing. While doing that work they unearthed a secret letter from one of original donors inside a concrete column. Basically the letter says that the columns always sucked and he’s glad they are being demolished. That’s a level of pettiness and long-game that we should all admire and work towards.

Last call: The Drink cart Honey Deuce

There is nothing better than a sporting event’s signature cocktail. In 2023, at the U.S. Open, they sold 450,000 Honey Deuces at $22 a pop for a grant total of $9.9 million in sales. This year, they expect to sell more and the price is up to $23. The inflation is real. As is the pain when you get Honey Duece-blocked like this poor guy.

And they do this business despite it featuring Honey Dew melon balls in it - which is for obvious reasons the world’s worst fruit. You can tell how much a restaurant has contempt for you when they randomly throw a slice of honey dew on your plate. So I say, skip the mid fruit, and level up with orange-tastic Cantelope - which remind me so much of when Renly was much younger and would chase his favourite orange balls in the park with wild abandon.

Here’s my take on the Not So Honey Deuce:

• 1 1/2 oz Vodka.

• 1/2 oz of Chambord raspberry liquor

• 3 oz fresh squeed lemonade

• Crushed ice

• Frozen Cantelope balls to garnish.

Here’s another edition of Drink Cart Approved™ discussion topics (inspired by this Dad who has a full on agenda for every Friday with his crew - which is my dream):

• Are Trump trading cards the most insane thing we’ll see in the 2024 election cycle?

• Cinnamon Toast Crunch Bacon. Yes or no? As Cerealously noted, “BREAKING: God has abandoned us.”

• Do only ad people laugh at things like this?

• Are overhead shots of Rome or Barcelona better?

• Have you thought about using animals in your Product Listing Pages? They’re so hot right now.

• Call the brand police: Should Nike be allowing vertical swooshes?

• Did you think that this baseball card was going to make you rich in 1989? Just me?

• Why was chalk packaging in the 1930s absolutely terrifying? Evidence.

• Would you want the Yeti x Liquid Death casket cooler?

Lastly, I just wanted to say a final thank you to Renly.

I wish I could give him some sort of Anthony Hopkins in Meet Joe Black exit speech, but his understanding of human language was limited to “bring it” and “treat” at best. So let me cut to the chase.

He was the bestest dog even if he didn’t care about newsletters or marketing or even the concept of work at all - boy did he love the WFH era though. He figured out Zoom in about 3 hours and blackmailed us for treats every time we were on. His jobs were harder to quantify. In no particular order: Bathroom breaks. Sniffing. Rolling. Sleeping. Humping his blanket nightly. Playing fetch with his favourite toys that had treats in them (Top 5 Renly Toys: Red Cup, Pencil Sharpener, Car, Milk Carton and Gross Mouth Toy formerly known as Nutcracker).

I wish we’d been able to do something like this together. I’m gonna miss all the madness he brought us. And I’d give anything to come home just a few more times for one of his incredible greetings and spin routines.

God damn, look at that stupid face. Gonna miss you Ren. Thank you!

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.