The Drink Cart: Turnip Heads
The only ad newsletter not ghostwritten by a living turnip creature, not repped by the discount Affleck but still trapped in loop of AI slop and cute food videos.
Dear marketing fans, anyone trying to figure out AI’s impact on life and anyone thinking about their cool new root veggie-influencer Instagram account.
The data is now streaming in on how we use AI. This chart from Open AI is a reminder that for all the hype about AI role-playing girlfriends and digital Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, most people just want to get stuff done. Nearly 60% of conversations are pragmatic: fixing messy copy, tightening a paragraph, walking through math homework or digging up a quick fact.
The fun, weird, expressive side—fiction writing, chitchat, image generation—does exist, but it’s a much smaller slice of the pie. The story here isn’t AI as a playground, it’s more of AI as a Swiss Army knife. Actually kind of practical, sharp and always within reach.
Of course, if my feed is any indication, people are spending a lot of time making content about foods eating themselves. So it is wonder the mainstream media is now discovering this with articles like, “Are Trampoline Bunnies and Dog Podcasters the Future of Entertainment?”
Trampoline bunnies, dog podcasters, apples eating themselves aren’t about rabbits or Labradors, or apples they’re about the collapse of creative scarcity. AI is stripping away the costs that used to gatekeep entertainment—sets, crews, actors. What’s left is pure distribution power. 237 million views for an eight-second clip of a turnip creature eating itself made for six bucks is the real story.
For brands, that’s not really “slop,” that’s a potential playbook: attention at scale no longer belongs to the networks or the studios, it belongs to whoever can prompt weird well enough to win the feed.
To balance all that nerd and AI talk we have to give props to Miss Vickie’s chips for doing a new three-flavour limited edition restaurant series that includes my favourite restaurant in Montreal, Nora Gray. This is the opposite of slop.
I’ve been obsessed with their focaccia and spicy pepperoncini starter for over 2 years now. Now it’s in chip form, sitting in the same lineup as two other restaurant-driven flavours. It’s a smart move: instead of made-up “BBQ Nacho Extreme” or worse some click baiting “Truffle Buttered Turnip Latte” stunt, they’re tapping real restaurants and letting that credibility do the heavy lifting. Suddenly a bag of chips feels like a dinner reservation.
Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
This debate is amazing: How many seagulls in your house would you find suspicious.
You can’t tell me the intro to ChiPs wasn’t the best thing you saw today. 1977 rocked.
Ad History Knorr (1985)
Now you see why there’s so much Turnip talk in this newsletter. On one hand you’ve got the wholesome sweater-dad spooning out thick, smooth soup. On the other, a bulbous turnip-headed scarecrow dancing in the rain with a grin that would make Pennywise jealous.
Ads back then weren’t afraid to be a little weird, even unsettling, because the reward was simple: soup so good you “schloup.” Today it plays like an unintentional precursor to viral horror-TikToks, proof that even comfort food brands once leaned into the uncanny.
And speaking of turnips and soup. My algorithm, not 24 hours after watching this ad a few times delivered me the bonkers idea of 3 Feet of Soup in the form of Soup Tube as well as this “Little Turnip” Trust me, you’ll be saying for the next few days.
The value Affleck
Quick question: How much money would you accept to be insulted as old at 53 by a Secret Lives Of Morman Wives reality star in a Dunkin commercial?
Brand Play of the Week
The Pittsburgh Penguins know how to make season ticket delivery feel bigger than a FedEx drop. Every year they send players out to hand-deliver tickets to fans. Or as one fan described it, “A Penguins employee delivering season tickets.” Imagine opening your door and finding Sidney Crosby standing there with your package.
It’s almost a small thing, and it’s so dumb and simple, but it makes season ticket holders feel like insiders instead of customers. A reminder that the best fan experiences don’t need a giant budget, just a little access and surprise.
Last call: The Drink Cart In Cold Blood
Lately when not drinking beer and watching baseball games, I’ve been chasing the clean, stirred builds and this one nails it. Invented by Andrew Volk at Portland, Maine’s Hunt + Alpine Club and is equal parts rye, Cynar and sweet vermouth.
Nothing fancy, no garnish needed - just a big cube of ice. It’s dark, simple and way more than the sum of its three ingredients.A few rounds of these would fold most soft agency people like lawn chairs.
I’m biased, but In Cold Blood feels like it could sit next to the modern classics. Proof that sometimes three moves are all you need.
Here’s my take on it:
1oz sweet vermouth
1oz Cynar
1oz Rye
Wash that down and marvel at the amazing Robert Redford in All The Presidents Men .
The Drink Cart is your weekly fuel for pop culture brains and ad junkies. A cocktail of ad insights and hot takes that feel like you’re hanging at your favourite dive bar after launching your latest campaign.
That “Little Turnip” went too far.
Did you ever wonder why in that Watergate Dahlberg scene the first time he makes a call he needs to request an outside line, and the second call, he doesn't? Hard to get past that, y'know?