The Drink Cart: Uplifting Tariff Vigor
Severance’s joyful take on workplace culture, official hockey jeans and salty beervertising. Plus tariff hot takes and a rally cocktail fit for Master and Commander.
Dear cherished marketing enthusiasts and workplace merriment seekers.
Just like the amazing world builders at Lumon, “we invite you to revel in our Comprehensive Sanity Newsletter, which catalogs the rigid standards of advertising positivity we employ internally to ensure peak enterprise success.”
Apple TV’s Severance is one of the few things bringing the total brand experience to Linkedin with faux-corporate positivity.
What Anne Handley describes as “the soul-crushing corporate-speak of the show with unnerving accuracy. With exceedingly positive, cheerful, optimistic, yet horribly tone-deaf messages, the Lumon LinkedIn promotes a sense of in-da-clerb-we-all-fam belonging.”
All this bliss and merriment includes inspirational posters, influencer outreach and even Valentine’s greetings designed to carry us through each 8 hour increment with even more uplifted vigor. Just like the tariffs.
But the illusion only goes so far.
The about section on LinkedIn? A dead end that instantly spoils the world.
The official site? Just a redirect to the show’s main Apple TV page.
For a show so obsessed with world-building, this feels like a missed opportunity.
Why are we not going full Lost-era ARG with a truly immersive experience, complete with a Lumon-branded newsletter to guide us through our severed existence?
Instead, we’re left with the unsettling feeling that maybe, just maybe, the most accurate part of this entire campaign is its disappointing lack of follow-through.
Three stats that made my brain ache this week
More than 1 billion people are now watching podcasts on YouTube every month
7 out of 10 shoppers are planning to boycott US products reports KPMG.
That trash pizza prices have basically stayed the same since 1999. Also, be aware that Dominos is adding stuffed crust pizza. You’ve been warned.
Free means free, not just when it’s convenient
I don’t really want to wade into the tariff thing. This is an ad newsletter called The Drink Cart.
I want to be three fingers of whiskey deep and telling stories about 1980s ads after doing my stupid timesheets, not slapping a maple leaf all over the place.
But one thing that got me out of sorts with these two things.
On the one had you have this powerful Globe and Mail cover this week. It’s all about strong and free. Canada not being pushed around. It’s great stuff.
You even have the new version of a beer ad from 25 years ago that laughably was peddling Molson Canadian as faux-patriotism in an era where we had all just discovered microbrews. If you teared up over that, the sequel will get you. And I see it in my feed already.
This segment needs bit of levity. And anytime I hear microbrew I think of Always Sunny in Philadelphia and the enriched beers in this scene.
On the other you have the liquor taking all American products off the shelves all over the country. Ontario’s LCBO had to actually take their online store down just to remove the US booze.
It’s all very patriotic and providing us that maple leafed dopamine hit.
But it’s one we don’t even get to choose.
That is not what the free part means.
If there’s a tariff, and I still want bourbon, can’t I pay that?
I’m fully prepared for readers to unsubscribe if they disagree, but if we want to be free, we still have to do the free part.
Wouldn’t it be funnier if the 7/10 Canadian number for boycotting leaves it all on the shelves.
Isn’t that a more powerful message? But then this isn’t really about freedom is it?
Since we’re into the Great Trade War of 2025 now, and I’ve already muted half a dozen people for using the term “elbows up”, let’s get into patriotic cookies.
I clicked a banner ad (yes, i’m the person that still clicks on banner ads) for the rather “mid” Celebration cookie from Leclerc which has wrapped itself in the maple leaf so hard and was even using a #choosetheleaf hashtag.
Not only do I think we should skip cookie patriotism, once I clicked I was met with a “tariff pop up” in two ways. A go nowhere made in Canada pop up overlayed on top of the literal cookie pop up.
Don’t worry we have “two weeks to flatten the tariffs”.
Everything is fine.
Should brands be talking to each other?
I stumbled upon this on Linkedin.
Apparently Ikea, Sleep Country and The Brick are having a chat via ads. it seems fun, and playful, but nobody knows what any of them are talking about and why.
It’s the most insider of insider baseball. You know what is next, a non-sleep brand jumps in and then everyone is in there.
The comments are always, “isn’t this fun to see advertisers having fun”.
Only an advertiser would say that. How do you even explain this type of thing to a normie?
Ad History: Sasson Jeans The Official Jeans of the New York Rangers
It’s gotten a bit heavy in here, we need to go back to making hockey teams have tight jean sponsorships and making them do ads like this.
Greenport Harbor Brewing Company goes deep on Nautical stuff
These print ads from Carmichael Lynch don’t seem like they are from 2024 at all.
They seem like they are from a golden age of ads and make you want to drink a shot of rum and sign up for the Navy.
The campaign, “Greetings from Greenport Harbor” is for a brewery made in Greenport Harbor at the end of Long Island in a historic whaling village.
The rest seemed to write itself (well nothing is that easy) as they told the story of a place that born on the water that needed a really strong ale.
Here’s the problem: That natural nautical heritage and authenticity just screams off the ads from every line. It’s so great.
But whatever you do, do not then go to their Instagram page. It is not the same vibe. The brand in these ads is not the brand you see online.
It’s a huge missed opportunity. I want the world that these ads created, not the one offering up cheesy looking Limerick contests and off-brand party nights.
Hat of the week: Wisconsin Frozen Pizzas
This week we thankfully inch closer to baseball season, the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers dropped their new Frozen Pizza alternate set.
It turns out, as the team’s site suggests, “The great people of Wisconsin consume the most frozen pizza in the world.” So they needed to pay homage.
Last call: The Drink Cart Don’t Give Up The Ship
Since we spent a bit of time with that nautical brewery, seafaring was on our mind.
As luck would have it this aptly named cocktail, Don’t Give Up The Ship fell into our feeds.
A drink concocted in the 1940s which seems to have been a vailed reference to naval engagement in the War of 1812 between the British and Americas.
I’m listening. At least that’s what the 1941 book Crosby Gaige’s Cocktail Guide and Ladies’ Companion says.
The problem here is that this was a US rallying cry of the USS Chesapeake and the last words of its Captain James Lawrence, “Don't give up the ship. Fight her till she sinks."
The Don’t Give Up The Ship cocktail wasn’t really anything at all until the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle brought it back to life in 2004.
Tariff-talk aside, we should celebrate an era of tall ships and salty beards again.
Here’s the recipe:
1 1/2 oz gin
1/2 oz Fernet Branca
1/2 oz Curaçao (And guess what I don’t have that, so I swapped to Cointreau for now.)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth
Angostura Orange bitters (IYKYK)
Stir with ice, strain and pop that bad boy into a chilled coupe glass and tell 1812 battle stories.
I also want to bring your attention to these amazing new Cheers trading cards, which seem very appropriate to be reading about in this section of the newsletter.
You can’t tell me that getting some relic cards of Sam Malone’s classic shirts wouldn’t be magical? The set’s chase card? A Norm and Cliff dual autograph. 10/10.
Speaking of a rallying cry. You can’t do better than Jack Aubrey’s speech. Open a bag of some pretzels and pour the into another bag Meghan Markle-style and maybe follow it up with the duet scene.
Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics
Is AI killing your critical thinking skills? This new study from Microsoft say, yes.
How great were the personal notes Conan left under everyone’s seat at the Oscars?
Speaking of Oscars. The McDonalds breakfast post awards ad was good and I love that the giant type trend marches on in ads from Nike to McDonalds.
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.
Im sure each of those NY Rangers deeply regrets participating in that ad. And I’m happy to see a little Megan Markle (sorry, Sussex) content in here. It has a bit of that overly rosy hallmark vibe to it, so I thought it might be up your alley.