Team US-Slay.

If you’re interested in people running really fast, jumping really high, throwing shit really far or… err… ping pong… then you must have enjoyed the first week of the Olympics. But have you been formally introduced to Team USA by Ms. Beyonce Knowles? Probably not, because for some reason the video was released a couple days after the games began. I suppose Americans have quite a lot on their plates at the minute. That isn’t an obesity joke.

Sporting red, white, blue and custom Thom Browne, Beyonce made a rare appearance in the realm of corporeality to announce the athletes who will be representing this ‘big, bold, beautiful, complicated nation’ – featuring appearances from the likes of Kevin Durant, Noah Lyles and Simon Biles, who was apparently feeling up to it on that day.

‘Complicated’ feels needlessly nuanced. Can’t we just go back to when America thought it was the absolute tits and apologised for nothing? That was way more fun. More of this, please.

Cultured.

This is disgusting…ly cool. Madalena Studio has reimagined Crucible’s brand identity by channelling the power of bacterial growth into something beautiful. Well, more beautiful than gonorrhoea at least.

Known for having an experimental approach to drink-making, Crucible is an award-winning lab operating in drinks and flavour development. That’s precisely why it made complete sense to craft their logo out of samples including aged kombucha, a liquid culture of lion’s mane fungi, household food waste, and swabs from skin and soil solutions. And that’s also precisely why these repulsive visionaries were mad enough to sign it off.

It’s no wonder Crucible’s mysterious methods of boundary-pushing alchemy have landed them big-name clients such as Johnnie Walker, Belvedere, Lavazza and Fever Tree. That sounds like one hell of a cocktail. What’s the opposite of a Cosmopolitan? A Provincial? A Parochial? A Bigot? It could also describe the step-by-step process of succumbing to and subsequently overcoming an alcohol problem. The scope for growth is infinite when it comes to bacterial marketing.

Print Advertising.

There are only two types of people who keep receipts: those looking to reclaim expenses, and serial killers. It’s impossible that anyone could possess such assiduousness and not end up mowing down at least a couple unsuspecting pedestrians.

Due to this, like those pedestrians, receipts are a dying breed. But the Co-Op haven’t forgotten the good old days when a receipt was slapped in your palm by default, whereas now asking for one evokes a reaction one might expect if you had requested that the cashier hand over one of their kidneys.

The Co-Op’s latest campaign uses the humble receipt as the medium to bring their new brand messaging to life, with each frame of this stop-motion animation ad having been physically printed on a real receipt. Bold move. Almost as bold as being a brand that sells sausages, Stocks & Shares ISAs and funerals all under one roof.

Just Dough It.

How could a just and merciful God be so cruel as to give the more corpulent member of a boyband the surname ‘Fatone’. That isn’t even subtle; it barely even looks like a real name. Although, to be fair, why should we expect any different? Zeus turned his first wife into a fly and ate her before remarrying and constantly cheating on his new wife, including one particularly memorable incident when he disguised himself as a cloud – cumulus indeed.

The point we’re taking the scenic route to making is that perhaps Gods aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. But you know what actually does live up to its reputation? Donuts. Plus they’re also holy.

The team at Dunkin’ sat around a circular table with a hole in the middle and pondered which celebrity ambassador they should sprinkle into their new campaign. They phoned Justin Timberlake but unfortunately he was driving back from the bar so didn’t pick up. Then, just as the sugar crash was hitting and all their eyes began to glaze over, one marketing executive clicked his sticky fingers and through a mouthful of crumbs exclaimed, “…what about the fat one?”. Like that, Joey Fatone x Dunkin was born. But what’s better than one aging 90s pop star? Two of em. Boom, in comes AJ McLean. Easily in my top 5 favourite Backstreet Boys.

Mount Never Rest.

There’s nothing quite like being in the great outdoors. No maniacs asking if they can use your bath, no postmen stealing your parcels, nobody bumping Lime bikes (those are all things that happened to or in front of me before 11am on Tuesday). Nature is just so… natural.

No! It’s too natural! I’m insulted by its tranquillity! Quick, fix it! Break it! Do something! Anything! Just make it stop being so intolerably pure!

We asked, and Skip x Arc’teryx delivered. They’ve teamed up to create MO/GO, a pair of powered exoskeleton trousers capable of boosting weary legs by up to 40%. The trousers lessen muscle fatigue and joint discomfort by augmenting their quadricep and hamstrings, making their wearers feel 30 pounds lighter. It’s probably cheaper than Ozempic.

Ahhhh, that’s better. Now if we could just put a MacArthur Glen shopping centre in the Okavango Delta I can rest easy knowing that man’s dominion over the natural world remains uninhibited by inconveniences such as aesthetic or moral values.

Veepstakes.

We started with Beyonce, and we shall finish with Beyonce. That’s called a Beyonce bookend. A Beyonce bifurcation? Beyoncefurcation? Never mind. Wake up babe, new Kamala Harris ad just dropped (which we’re now going to judge entirely objectively based on its effectiveness for its target audience and not based on any opinions we may hold on either candidate…).

Set to the Beyoncé anthem Freedom (after “politely declining” Katy Perry’s gracious offer of her new song), the ad emphasizes liberty, diversity and justice while throwing not-so-subtle shade at Donald Trump and JD Vance, Mr. Trump’s “weird” running mate who recently labelled Vice President Harris a “childless cat-lady”.

Regardless of what you think of Ms. Harris, her record, her electoral prospects, her nervous laugh, her proclivity to speak in whimsically nonsensical rhyme, or the incongruency of her promise to save democracy despite having been undemocratically anointed… the ad does a good job. It feels fresh, which is precisely what the American electorate is clamouring for. It positions her as the change candidate, which is impressive considering she’s now essentially the de facto incumbent. It hits her key points, and as a first introduction to her nascent campaign, it works.

The prosecutor vs. the convicted felon. The cop vs. the crook. The powerful woman vs. the misogynist. Grab the popcorn, things are about to get fun. Whoever’s writing the script for this season of ‘America’ deserves a pay-rise.