This year's Super Bowl commercials hit the usual notes: inspiring sports tributes, outlandish celebrity cameos, high-concept movie parodies, and a few dashes of social awareness.
But in a media sphere with fewer and fewer television events that capture a national audience, it's still a winning formula, YouTube VP Tara Walpert Levy told Cheddar.
"I think it is getting harder and harder to find water cooler moments that bring together these kinds of audiences that once existed in traditional television," said Walpert Levy said. "The Super Bowl is one of the few and one of the biggest that still delivers."
To highlight the most popular videos as of game day, YouTube on Monday morning ranked the most-viewed Super Bowl LIV spots on the video service.
Amazon topped the list with its ad starring Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi as they imagined what the world was like before Alexa came along to answer everyone's questions.
Facebook, Jeep, Hyundai, and T-Mobile also fell into the top five with a mix of star-studded spots that tended toward absurd humor rather than the flashy or self-serious.
"Comedy definitely won the day here yesterday," Walpert Levy said.
She added that lighter fare does better in the short term, in part due to the festive mood that comes with Super Bowl viewing parties, but "if you look at the trend over a broader stretch, you see a more mixed story, because of some of those more touching ads really pop."
The life of Super Bowl ads before and after game day is increasingly a factor in which spots get remembered and talked about.
No less than 43 brands pre-released their ads online before game day. That's up from 30 brands the year prior, according to Ad Age.
Companies understandably want to get their money's worth. A 30-second spot costs $5.6 million. The price hit $5 million in 2017 and jumped to $5.2 million in 2018.
While airtime during one of America's last big TV events doesn't come cheap, access to such a large audience might still be worth the price tag.
"If you're looking for a water cooler moment and to get people talking and you've got a great ad, this is the place to be," Levy said.
A big-screen adaptation of the anime “Chainsaw Man” has topped the North American box office, beating a Springsteen biopic and “Black Phone 2.” The movie earned $17.25 million in the U.S. and Canada this weekend. “Black Phone 2” fell to second place with $13 million. Two new releases, the rom-com “Regretting You” and “Springsteen — Deliver Me From Nowhere,” earned $12.85 million and $9.1 million, respectively. “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” is based on the manga series about a demon hunter. It's another win for Sony-owned Crunchyroll, which also released a “Demon Slayer” film last month that debuted to a record $70 million.
The Federal Aviation Administration says flights departing for Los Angeles International Airport were halted briefly due to a staffing shortage at a Southern California air traffic facility. The FAA issued a temporary ground stop at one of the world’s busiest airports on Sunday morning soon after U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted that travelers would see more flights delayed as the nation’s air traffic controllers work without pay during the federal government shutdown. The hold on planes taking off for LAX lasted an hour and 45 minutes and didn't appear to cause continued problems. The FAA said staffing shortages also delayed planes headed to Washington, Chicago and Newark, New Jersey on Sunday.
Boeing workers at three Midwest plants where military aircraft and weapons are developed have voted to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a strike that started almost three months ago. The strike by about 3,200 machinists at the plants in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and St. Charles, and in Mascoutah, Illinois, is smaller in scale than a walkout last year by 33,000 Boeing workers who assemble commercial jetliners. The president of the International Association of Machinists says Sunday's outcome shows Boeing hasn't adequately addressed wages and retirement benefits. Boeing says Sunday's vote was close with 51% of union members opposing the revised offer.
The stunning indictment that led to the arrest of more than 30 people — including Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and other NBA figures — has drawn new scrutiny of the booming business of sports betting in the U.S. The multibillion-dollar industry has made it easy for sports fans — and even some players — to wager on everything from the outcome of games to that of a single play with just a few taps of a cellphone. But regulating the rapidly-growing industry has proven to be a challenge. Professional sports leagues’ own role in promoting gambling has also raised eyebrows.
Tesla, the car company run by Elon Musk, reported Wednesday that it sold more vehicles in the past three months after boycotts hit hard earlier this year, but profits still fell sharply. Third-quarter earnings fell to $1.4 billion, from $2.2 billion a year earlier. Excluding charges, per share profit of 50 cents came in below analysts' estimate. Tesla shares fell 3.5% in after-hours trading. Musk said the company's robotaxi service, which is available in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco, will roll out to as many as 10 other metro areas by the end of the year.
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