We Need to Talk About the Tauntauns.

The only ad newsletter that watched someone win a million dollars for a Grok ad and felt less than nothing.

Dear marketing fans and anyone who celebrated a Svedka ad on LinkedIn and meant it.

The dust has settled. Your half-baked parlays are now but a distant memory. You’ve downloaded Bad Bunny’s albums, obviously. You’ve read all about Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. The Super Bowl is in our rear window for another year. But we’re still talking about the ads.

I’m not going to rehash an endless recap of them. Instead I’m going to share some observations, and see where that gets me. If it happens to land us in a rewarding cocktail by the end of this newsletter, then I did it. If we’re still talking about USA Today’s Ad Meter winner, I’ve lost.

Imagine you have a movie coming out in May. You buy a Super Bowl spot for $8-10 million. And instead of showing an actual trailer you spend it on a confusing, self-indulgent homage to classic Super Bowl ads that nobody notices. I'm talking about The Mandalorian and Grogu.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a sucker for Sam Elliot narration. But Tauntauns are not the damned Clydesdales. Maybe they are on Hoth. But not here. And maybe if they were doing a legit crossover and delivering beer. Or maybe if this was some weird Disney+ doing a Star Wars Iditarod Trail Tauntaun Race. Come to think of that, I would actually watch that like I watched Netflix’s spectacle, Skyscraper Live.

And if you think this is going to be the time I do not drop a completely left field reference, like this Lipizzaner stallion scene from Crimson Tide, you do not know Drink Cart editorial direction 3.448. And If you don’t think I’m going to drop the clip, then do a version about Tauntauns, then you don’t know me at all.

Star Wars Exec: Speaking of animals, did you ever smell those Tauntauns.

Me: What?

Star Wars Exec: From Hoth. The Tauntauns. The worst smelling creatures in the entire galaxy. They all smell bad on the outside?

Me: Yes, sir.

Star Wars Exec: “Yes, sir” you’re aware they smell bad on the outside or “Yes, sir” you’ve smelled one?

Me: Yes, sir I’ve smelled them. Yes, sir I was aware they smell bad on the outside. But with respect, sir, it’s not the outside you have to worry about. They smell worse on the inside. Sir.

Star Wars Exec: I didn’t know that. But they do smell worse on the outside.

[Chuckling]

Star Wars Exec: Some of the things that come out of them, uh, defy belief. But their usefulness is simplicity itself. You just slice one open and crawl inside and you can survive a night on Hoth. ‘Course you’ll never get the smell out of your clothes.

I can’t un-hear that dialogue. But let’s get back to the ad. The interesting thing is that people were hella mad. “This is one of the most inexplicable & damaging miscalculations I've ever seen. Star Wars is teetering on the brink of ruin.” Star Wars fans seem super fun.

So mad that Disney released a statement. A STATEMENT! “Our creative and marketing team landed on a unique concept that gave a nod to classic Big Game spots of years past. It captured the warmth, humor, and emotional connection between these two beloved characters and was the perfect next step for our campaign as we lead up to their big screen debut this summer.”

This ad did not do ANY of those things. To be fair it could be worse, there is evidence that people celebrated the makers of the Svedka vodka ad on LinkedIn. And trust me. It’s real. And yes, it was as cringe-inducing as it gets. It could also be the $1 million winner of the Grok Super Bowl AI ad contest. A million dollars. For this.

But if you have to issue a press release after your movie trailer, things are in dire straits (the sheer control I have not to embed a Dire Straits video right now and just link to it is incredible). This feels like the right take, “I think doing a Star Wars version of a beer commercial is a cute enough idea but really only something you can get away with when there’s a little more public confidence in your brand/movie.”

Holy cow. Star Wars, after 50 years, has not earned its ticket into pop culture anymore. They are like a pony-tailed, shorts-wearing Sean Connery in Medicine Man. They lost it. They had pop culture in their hand and then drove the franchise into the ground outside of Andor. Side bar: They do not make movies like this anymore.

The “you had to be there” or “you wouldn’t get it” attitude is as amazing as this 1992 film. Remember when Bud Light and Game of Thrones mostly pulled this off? Dilly Dilly and all that?

To summarize the fans are basically saying, “We've reached levels of over I didn't think were possible” And that’s not where you want to leave your brand post-Super Bowl.

Here’s what we’ve learned from this year’s Super Bowl:

1. Putting dogs into your ad is not in fact fool-proof. (Ring)

2. Everybody hates Crypto even if it’s about Lo-Fi Karaoke. (Coinbase)

3. You can do a trailer. You can do an ad. You can’t do both. (Star Wars)

4. The only thing people hate more than slop nostalgia is crypto (Dunkin Donuts)

5. We can agree that everyone hates AI bartending robots. (Svedka)

6. The Rosetta stone of ads: horses + eagle + Skynyrd + beer. (Budweiser)

7. Saying vibes with Charlie XCX and Rachel Sennott is not a strategy (Poppi)

Bonus Super Bowl thoughts:

• Did John Mulaney really sit in a studio all Super Bowl recording 15-second ads for Kraft Mac & Cheese? (Answer: Yes)

• “That Dunkin’ commercial is the future of all movies and tv if we don’t stop them now.”

• The drone shots in the Olympics were better than most of the Super Bowl ads.

• That there is going to be 1,000s of decks leaving the building talking about the “Benito Bowl” for the rest of the year. (brand lessons)

Drink Cart Approved™ agency discussion topics

• The betting markets are getting into stunts.

• Mr. Beast literally bought a bank. At some point there has to be a peak to Mr. Beast? No?

• The greatest Oscar snub “for your consideration” ad of all time.

• There’s been a lot of love for the Sarajevo 1984 Olympic Games branding.

• We don’t actually need AI to produce slop content, we are perfectly capable of it crafted by human hands as this Business Insider take shows.

• This checks out. My need to think where 12-seat wine bars could live is real.

• My algorithm is now delivering multiple 90s Mom Nostalgia Accounts. A sentence I didn’t think I would ever write. Exhibit A: Moms in grape themed kitchens. Exhibit B: All in on fruit kitchens. This is niche maxing to the extreme.

• Right on time, AI burnout has been named, and the thought leadership engine is about to hum.

Last call: Industry Sour

The Super Bowl is over. The briefs are delivered. The recaps are written. And you’re sitting there wondering why you’re still tired on a Wednesday.

You need an Industry Sour. It’s the drink some bar staff make for themselves after a double shift, which is basically what the last two weeks of your life have been. It’s got Fernet-Branca in it, which means it tastes like it’s good for you even though it absolutely is not.

It’s got Chartreuse in it, which means you’re fancy even when you don’t feel like it. And it’s got enough lime and sugar to make the whole thing go down easy when you frankly deserve something easy.

Make one. Drink it slowly. Do not check your inbox.

Industry Sour

• 3/4 oz Fernet-Branca

• 3/4 oz green Chartreuse

• 3/4oz lime juice

• 1/2 oz simple syrup

Shake everything with ice. Strain into a coupe (or just serve it on the rocks because straining and coupes sound like a lot of work). No garnish because you don’t have the energy and this drink does not need it.

As Han Solo would say about the Millennium Falcon, “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.”

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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.