South Park famously annoyed the world by triggering Echo and Google Home devices with familiar wake words. When Amazon’s at the wheel, however, the company is able to ensure that Alexa stays quiet using a method called acoustic fingerprinting.

In the lead-up to the Super Bowl, the company’s offered a (relatively) easy-to-understand breakdown of why its celebrity-laden ads won’t wake up Alexa during the big game. With its own ads, the company adds a fingerprint of the audio, which is stored on-device.

Given the Echo’s storage limitations, additional fingerprints are stored in the cloud, where the assistant can cross-check things before waking. The system generally works pretty well, though complications can occur in, say, a noisy environment (what Super Bowl party has ever been noisy, though?) in which case a longer clip is required to do its job.

Things, naturally, get a bit trickier when Amazon isn’t producing the ad (as South Park fans can attest). In that case, the system cross-checks audio with different users.

“If the audio of a request matches that of requests from at least two other customers, we identify it as a media event,” the company explains. “We also check incoming audio against a small cache of fingerprints discovered on the fly (the cached fingerprints are averages of the fingerprints that were declared matches). The cache allows Alexa to continue to ignore spurious wake words even when they no longer occur simultaneously.”

Once upon a time, people had to wait for the Super Bowl to watch the ads. Those dark days are over. Now you can have companies sell you products on-demand, any time, day or night. Amazon has already debuted its latest Alexa ad, and now Microsoft’s getting in on the action — and this one’s a bit of a tear-jerker.

The software giant’s Super Bowl spot highlights some of the work it’s done to increase the accessibility of its products. Front and center is the Xbox Adaptive Controller, a $100 ad-on that makes the console more accessible to gamers with a range of different needs. The spot features a number of different children (and their parents) who are better able to enjoy gaming using the device. 

The Adaptive Controller was created with input from a number of different groups, including The AbleGamers Charity, The Cerebral Palsy Foundation, SpecialEffect and Warfighter Engaged, and tested with help from various users. On top of its base functionality with two large pads, it also works with a number of different control inputs, which can be plugged into the rear of the product.

Amazon, Dish, Comcast and others are hoping to turn Super Bowl 2019 into a way to show off the potential for their voice technologies and TV integrations. The companies this week have been touting new features and a variety of voice commands that will allow viewers to get prepared for the big game, learn about players and teams, tune into NFL news and highlights, set their recordings and more.

In some cases, this may be as simple as asking your TV to tune to the Super Bowl, record the event or get more information about the game, as is the case with Dish. Customers can press the button on their Dish voice remote, then say to Alexa “Super Bowl” or “Super Bowl 53” to watch, find information or record the game, the company says.

Comcast and Amazon are taking things further, however.

Comcast’s Xfinity X1 customers can now use their voice remote to get the latest stats, get pre-game news and post-game highlights or even turn on an app that tracks real-time stats on the screen during the big game.

For example, X1 customers can say “Tom Brady vs. Jared Goff,” “The Patriots vs. the Rams,” “Show me Julian Edelman,” “Show me Rams leaders” and other sorts of commands to get stats on teams or to learn about the players. They also can say “Super Bowl” or “NFL” to be taken to news and highlights, or say “X1 Sports app” to launch the stat-tracking feature on their TV screen.

Smart home users with Xfinity Home can even turn their lighting to their favorite team’s colors by saying “Xfinity Home, go Patriots!” or “go Rams!,” as desired.

Alexa’s Super Bowl feature set is more robust, offering the ability to ask for trivia and quizzes, background on the players and teams, stats, jokes and burns, track the odds, get historical data and more.

These sorts of questions can range from the basic — like, “where is the Super Bowl this year?” — to the more complex, like “what is the Patriots yards per carry this season?” or “how many times has Tom Brady been to the Super Bowl?”

You can also ask Alexa for a Super Bowl quiz, fact or past game recaps, in addition to more informational questions. Alexa can give you football jokes and “burns,” too.

What was surprising was that some of the stat-related questions Alexa could answer herself weren’t answered on Google Home, when asked the same way — for example, the above yards per carry question, and number of Super Bowls that Tom Brady has been to.

Both Alexa and Google Assistant will give you their own opinion on who they want to win, however. Google says it’s cheering for the underdog, the Rams. Alexa says as much as she wants to cheer for the Rams, she thinks the Patriots will win.

Another year, another batch of Super Bowl commercials from tech giants like Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

In fact, Amazon will have different ads focusing on different areas of the business: one highlighting products that won’t be taking advantage of its voice-powered assistant Alexa, and another previewing “Hanna,” an upcoming show on Amazon Prime.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is highlighting some of the ways technology can actually make people’s lives better — perhaps as a corrective to the ongoing backlash against the tech industry.

There will be star-studded spots from somewhat less ubiquitous companies too, with Bumble enlisting Serena Williams to deliver a message of empowerment and Squarespace depicting Idris Elba’s attempts to build his own website.

This year, we’ve also got commercials from non-tech companies like Pringles that place voice assistants and robots front-and-center. And while there are plenty of car commercials, I tried to stick to the ones that actually focused on new tech.

I’ve rounded up the tech-related ads that were released before the game below. Some companies are holding back until the actual Super Bowl, so if necessary, I’ll update this post after the game.

Updated with Budweiser, CBS All Access, Hulu, Netflix and Wix commercials, plus the full TurboTax commercial.

Amazon Alexa

Amazon Prime/”Hanna”

Audi

Budweiser

Bumble

CBS All Access/”The Twilight Zone”

Expensify

Google

Hulu/”The Handmaid’s Tale”

Michelob Ultra

Microsoft

Netflix/”Our Planet”

Pringles

Squarespace

TurboTax

Wix

Football fans didn’t tune into this year’s Super Bowl coverage on TV in as large numbers as in years past. According to Nielsen, the big game drew an average televised audience of around 98.2 million viewers. CBS, however, said the big game was watched across all platforms — including digital and streaming — by a combined total of 100.7 million viewers. In addition, the streaming coverage of the game broke new records this year, which helped to make up for the TV audience decline.

The network said the streamed event was watched across 7.5 million unique devices, up more than 20 percent from last year. Streaming viewers watched more than 560 million total hours of live game coverage, up more than 19 percent from 2017. And the average minute audience of 2.6 million viewers during the game window was up over 31 percent year-over-year.

The live stream’s record-breaking numbers were aided by the fact that the stream itself was available unauthenticated across CBSSports.com, the CBS Sports app, NFL.com, the NFL app and Verizon mobile properties — including Yahoo Sports, Yahoo, AOL, AOL Sports and Tumblr. (Disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon.)

The live stream was also made available on CBS’s subscription streaming service, CBS All Access, which saw a record number of new subscriber sign-ups, unique viewers and time spent on Super Bowl Sunday — following the service’s recent record-breaking weekend attributed to the Season 2 premiere of “Star Trek: Discovery” and the AFC Championship Game.

CBS All Access sign-ups were up 84+ percent on Super Bowl Sunday, while unique viewers were up more than 46 percent, and time spent was up more than 76 percent, CBS said.

Streaming, combined with TV viewers and CBS digital properties like CBS Interactive, NFL digital properties, Verizon Media mobile properties and ESPN Deportes TV and digital properties, brought the total audience to 100.7 million, as noted above. But 149.0 million watched the game either all or in part (meaning they watched at least six minutes of the TV broadcast), according to Nielsen data cited by CBS.

However, Nielsen also pointed out that TV viewership saw a massive drop this year for what was generally thought to be a pretty boring game (and boring halftime show).

According to the measurement firm’s preliminary results released Monday evening, the telecast of Super Bowl LIII on CBS drew an average TV audience of about 98.2 million viewers.

That’s down 5 percent from last year, when 103.4 million people watched the Super Bowl on NBC, and a 12 percent drop from 2017’s game on Fox. The New York Times attributed the decline to the forgettable game, New Orleans fans tuning out, NFL boycotts over Colin Kaepernick’s treatment and other factors. It’s also the smallest TV audience since 2008, when the Giants beat the Patriots.

GM is bringing back the Hummer in a new electric form. The automaker confirmed Thursday plans to produce an all-electric Hummer with 1,000 horsepower and the ability to accelerate from zero to 60 miles per hour in 3 seconds.

This “super truck,” which GM teased in several videos, will be under its GMC brand. The teasers, one of which is posted below, were released ahead of a 30-second Super Bowl ad for the Hummer called “Quiet Revolution” that will star NBA phenom LeBron James.

All of these videos and the ad will lead into a big reveal scheduled for May 20.

GM isn’t releasing information on the base price of the Hummer. The automaker did share some eye-popping specs, including it will produce the equivalent of 1,000 horsepower, have a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3 seconds and 11,500 feet of torque.

“GMC builds premium and capable trucks and SUVs and the GMC HUMMER EV takes this to new heights,” Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, said in a statement.

The company said the Hummer EV will be produced at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Michigan. On Monday, GM announced plans to invest $2.2 billion into its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant to produce all-electric trucks and SUVs, as well as a self-driving vehicle unveiled by its subsidiary Cruise. The automaker said it will invest an additional $800 million in supplier tooling and other projects related to the launch of the new electric trucks.

GM will kick off this new program with an all-electric pickup truck that will go into production in late 2021. The Cruise Origin, the electric self-driving shuttle designed for ridesharing, will be the second vehicle to go into production at the Detroit area plant.

Detroit-Hamtramck will be GM’s first fully dedicated electric vehicle assembly plant. When fully operational, the plant will create more than 2,200 jobs, according to GM.

Many of the companies spending big bucks on today’s big game have already released their ads (or teasers for those ads) on YouTube. So if you’re curious about how tech companies will be promoting themselves tonight, this is the roundup for you.

Some of these ads come from tech giants like Amazon and Facebook, who have hired big stars to promote their products. Meanwhile, Dashlane found a fun way to remind viewers of the nightmare of life without a password manager, while Squarespace enlisted Winona Ryder to build a website on the platform.

The Super Bowl also provides an opportunity for automotive companies like Hyundai to put new technology front-and-center in their marketing, and for SodaStream to take viewers into space. And while voice assistants don’t seem to be as big a theme as they were last year, at least we’re getting a killer robot, courtesy of Pringles and “Ricky and Morty.”

You can watch the ads in alphabetical order below. And I’ll update this post as more ads become available online.

Amazon

Audi

Dashlane

Disney+

Facebook

Google

Hulu

Hyundai

Microsoft

Olay

Pringles

Quibi

SodaStream

Squarespace

T-Mobile

TurboTax

Updated on February 3 with Disney+, Facebook, Hulu, Olay and Quibi ads.

GM said Wednesday that it will postpone its upcoming reveal of a GMC-branded electric Hummer due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Hummer EV debut, which was scheduled to occur May 20, is the latest automotive event to be delayed in recent months due to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The Geneva Motor Show and Cadillac’s Lyriq reveals were also canceled or postponed.

GM said it will reschedule the reveal and that development work on the GMC Hummer EV is “on track and undeterred.”

Earlier this year, GM announced it was bringing back the Hummer in a new electric form. Since the announcement, GM has teased the “super truck” in several videos, including a 30-second Super Bowl ad for the Hummer called “Quiet Revolution” that starred NBA  phenom LeBron James.

GM hasn’t released the base price of the vehicle, although it has shared some specs, including that it will produce the equivalent of 1,000 horsepower, have a 0 to 60 mph acceleration of 3 seconds and 11,500 feet of torque.

The Hummer EV will be produced at its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant in Michigan. GM previously announced plans to invest $2.2 billion into its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant to produce all-electric trucks and SUVs, as well as a self-driving vehicle unveiled by its subsidiary Cruise. The automaker said at the time it will invest an additional $800 million in supplier tooling and other projects related to the launch of the new electric trucks.

Reddit has raised a new funding round, totaling $250 million. This is the company’s Series E round of financing, and it comes hot on the heels of renewed public attention on the site that has dubbed itself “the front page of the Internet,” owing to the role the subreddit r/WallStreetBets played in the recent meteoric rise (and subsequent steep fall) of the value of GameStop stock. Reddit also ran a five-second Super Bowl ad on Sunday, consisting of a single static image that looked like a standard post on the network itself.

This is Reddit’s 16th year of operation, and the company has raised around $800 million to date, including a Tencent-led $300 million Series D in February, 2019. Today’s round included financing from “existing and new investors,” Reddit noted in a blog post in which it announced the funding.

In the post, Reddit notes that the company felt “now was the right opportunity to make strategic investments in Reddit including video, advertising, consumer products and expanding into international markets.”

Reddit’s 5-second Super Bowl ad.

It’s unclear how the round came together exactly, but given the network’s time in the spotlight over the past few weeks, culminating in yesterday’s very brief, but also very memorable and high-profile ad, it seems likely it was at least finalized fast in order to help the company make the most of its time in the spotlight.

In terms of what kind of specific moves Reddit could make with its new cash on hand, the blog post also name-checked its acquisition late last year of short video sharing platform Dubsmash, and announced plans to double its team over the course of this year with new hires.

Reddit’s long history has also included some significant tumult, and efforts to clean up its act in order to present a better face to advertisers and potential new community members.

The network still struggles with balancing its commitments to fostering a home for a range of communities with the potential for hate speech and discrimination to take root within some of these. And it was also in the news earlier this year for finally banning controversial subreddit r/donaldtrump following “repeat´d policy violations” surrounding the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of domestic terrorists.

Shell’s plan to roll out 500,000 electric charging stations in just four years is the latest sign of an EV charging infrastructure boom that has prompted investors to pour cash into the industry and inspired a few companies to become public companies in search of the capital needed to meet demand.

Since the beginning of the year, three companies have been acquired by special purpose acquisition vehicles and are on a path to go public, while a third has raised tens of millions from some of the biggest names in private equity investing for its own path to commercial viability.

The SPAC attack began in September when an electric vehicle charging network ChargePoint struck a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company Switchback Energy Acquisition Corporation, with a market valuation of $2.4 billion. The company’s public listing will debut February 16 on the New York Stock Exchange.

In January, EVgo, an owner and operator of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, agreed to merge with the SPAC Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition for a valuation of $2.6 billion — a huge win for the company’s privately held owner, the power development and investment company LS Power. LS Power and EVgo management, which today own 100% of the company, will be rolling all of its equity into the transaction. Once the transaction closes in the second quarter, LS Power and EVgo will hold a 74% stake in the newly combined company.

One more deal soon followed. Volta Industries agreed to merge this month with Tortoise Acquisition II, a tie-up that would give the charging company named after battery inventor Alessandro Volta a $1.4 billion valuation. The deal sent shares of the SPAC company, trading under the ticker SNPR, rocketing up 31.9% in trading earlier this week to $17.01. The stock is currently trading around $15 per share.

Not to be outdone, private equity firms are also getting into the game. Riverstone Holdings, one of the biggest names in private equity energy investment, placed its own bet on the charging space with an investment in FreeWire. That company raised $50 million in a new round of funding earlier this year.

“The writing is on the wall and the investors have to take the time. There’s been a flight out of the traditional investment opportunities in markets,” said FreeWire chief executive Arcady Sosinov, in an interview. “There’s been a flight out of the oil and gas companies and out of the traditional utilities. You have to look at other opportunities… This is going to be the largest growth opportunity of the next 10 years.”

FreeWire deploys its infrastructure with BP currently, but the company’s charging technology can be rolled out to fast food companies, post offices, grocery stores or anywhere people go and spend somewhere between 20 minutes and an hour. With the Biden administration’s plan to boost EV adoption in federal fleets, post offices actually represent another big opportunity for charging networks, Sosinov said.

“One of the reasons we find electrification of mobility so attractive is because it’s not if or how, it’s when,” said Robert Tichio, a partner at Riverstone in charge of the firm’s ESG efforts. “Penetration rates are incredibly low… compare that to Norway or Northern Europe. They have already achieved double-digit percentages.”

A recent Super Bowl commercial from GM featuring Will Farrell showed just how far ahead Norway is when it comes to electric vehicle adoption. 

“The demands on capital in the electrification of transport will begin to approach three quarters of a trillion annually,” Tichio said. “The short answer to your question is that the needs for capital now that we have collectively, politically, socially economically come to a consensus in terms of where we’re going and we couldn’t say that 18 months ago is going to be at a tipping point.”

Shell already has electric vehicle charging infrastructure that it has deployed in some markets. Back in 2019 the company acquired the Los Angeles-based company Greenlots, an EV charging developer. And earlier this year Shell made another move into electric vehicle charging with the acquisition of Ubitricity in the U.K.

“As our customers’ needs evolve, we will increasingly offer a range of alternative energy sources, supported by digital technologies, to give people choice and the flexibility, wherever they need to go and whatever they drive,” said Mark Gainsborough, executive vice president, New Energies for Shell, in a statement at the time of the Greenlots acquisition. “This latest investment in meeting the low-carbon energy needs of US drivers today is part of our wider efforts to make a better tomorrow. It is a step towards making EV charging more accessible and more attractive to utilities, businesses and communities.”

Sundae, a residential real estate marketplace that pairs sellers of dated or damaged property with potential buyers, has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round co-led by Fifth Wall and General Global Capital.

QED Investors, Wellington Management, Susa Ventures, Founders Fund, First American Financial, Prudence Holdings, Crossover VC, Intersect Capital, Gaingels and Oberndorf Ventures also participated in the financing. The round marks San Francisco-based Sundae’s third financing in a 13-month time frame, bringing its total raised since its August 2018 inception to $135 million. 

The San Francisco-based company declined to reveal at what valuation its Series C was raised. It also declined to provide hard revenue figures, saying only that it saw a 600% year-over-year increase in revenue from June 2020 to June 2021.

The startup aims to help people who need to sell dated or “damaged” properties for a variety of reasons — such as job loss, illness or divorce. In some cases, according to CEO and co-founder Josh Stech, such vulnerable sellers get taken advantage of by “predatory fix and flippers” seeking to capitalize on their misfortune. 

Since sellers in these situations don’t typically have the funds to fix up their properties before selling, Sundae lists the property for them on its platform – serving as an intermediary between sellers and investors. There, it is visible to about 2,600 qualified off-market buyers.

The company essentially aims to aggregate demand from “fix and flippers,” who use the marketplace to bid against each other for distressed properties. If the seller accepts and an inspection is completed, the company offers a $10,000 cash advance before closing to help homeowners with moving costs or other expenses.

“Our goal is to displace wholesalers who exploit desperate or uninformed sellers and lock them into a contract which they turn around and assign to a property investor at a steep profit,” Stech said. “The tens of thousands of dollars in lost equity that goes to a wholesaler could mean the difference between paying off debts, or having enough money to retire.”

Sundae claims that on average, sellers receive 10 offers within three days on its marketplace.

Since its launch in January 2019, the startup has slowly been expanding its marketplace geographically. It went from operating in four markets in California at the end of last year to now operating in 14 markets across Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Texas and Utah.

Sundae makes money by charging buyers in its investor marketplace a fee when it “assigns” them a property. 

In the first quarter of this year, the startup launched a dedicated online marketplace for investors, where they can view properties and submit offers. Once an investor signs up to join the marketplace, they can access the full inventory of properties, including information such as photos, floor plan, 3D walkthrough and a third-party inspection report. 

Looking ahead, the company plans to use its new capital to expand to new markets, invest in its platform and “build brand awareness.” It also, of course, plans to boost its current headcount of 180 mostly remote employees.

Vik Chawla, a partner at Fifth Wall, believes Sundae is serving a segment of the residential real estate market that has historically been overlooked. 

“Their marketplace model simultaneously solves a crucial pain point for sellers by disrupting the wholesale industry, while delivering a platform that property investors can count on for reliable investment opportunities,” he said.

The company last raised $36 million in a Series B funding round in December 2020.

Interestingly, a slew of angel investors — including a number of athletes and celebrities — also put money in the company’s latest round, including: actor Will Smith, KYGO and Palm Tree Crew, three-time NFL Super Bowl champion Richard Seymour of 93 Ventures, NFL All-Pro DK Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks, Matt Chapman of the Oakland A’s, Alex Caruso of the Los Angeles Lakers, Aaron Gordon of the Denver Nuggets, Solomon Hill of the Atlanta Hawks, Kelly Olynyk of the Houston Rockets, NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas, three-time NBA Champion & Gold Medalist Klay Thompson of the Golden State Warriors, Hassan Whiteside of the Sacramento Kings, Andrew Wiggins of the Golden State Warriors and 2020 U.S. Soccer Player of the Year and Juventus midfielder, Weston McKennie.

What’s more illustrative of American capitalism than that day-after water cooler chat about the advertisements we saw during the Super Bowl? From food delivery apps to phones that were shockingly not made by Apple, tech companies commanded our attention last night, forcing us to explain to our friends that NFTs aren’t the same thing as cryptocurrency.

On scales of cringe and effectiveness, here are the Super Bowl’s best (and worst) tech ads.

Coinbase

A QR code bounced around the black screen like a DVD screensaver, cycling through bright colors while a generic techno song played.

I pulled out my phone to scan the QR code, because why not — my friend yelled from across the room, “Don’t do it! It could be a virus! Or worse, crypto!”

Sure enough, the QR code opened the Coinbase website on my phone, offering $15 in free Bitcoin for new users with no purchase necessary. According to Coinbase Chief Product Officer Surojit Chatterjee, the ad was so popular that Coinbase experienced more traffic than it’s ever encountered.

Effectiveness: 6/10

Clearly the ad was effective because their website crashed from all the traffic. But since, you know, the website crashed, they have to lose some points.

I’m also not sold on the “Instead of talking about crypto, we decided to just… give you some” marketing tactic. Like any investment, knowing what you’re investing in is probably a good thing! Sure, you have to engage in the market to get a grasp on it, but also, it’s baffling that none of these crypto commercials actually explained what it is that they want consumers to invest in.

Cringe: 7/10

The retro aesthetic is actually kind of cool. The bouncing QR code was a risk, but I remember this ad more vividly than any others, so it worked. But the QR code directs you to a website with the offer information, and that website is a bit cringe. Coinbase writes “WAGMI” on the site, which is crypto-bro slang for “we are gonna make it,” which means, “we are one of the startups that isn’t going to burn out in a few years and cause many people to lose money.” But maybe saying WAGMI implies a fear that you’re NGMI?

FTX

Yet another cryptocurrency exchange platform, the Bahamas-based FTX reached a $32 billion valuation last month after raising another $400 million in funding. Some of that budget has to go to marketing, so why not hire the famous curmudgeon Larry David to film his first Super Bowl commercial?

The premise of the commercial is that the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star is so skeptical of everything that he’s missed out on some great investments — he tells Edison that his lightbulb is NGMI (not a direct quote), and that using a dishwasher doesn’t make sense when you can just put the dishes in the shower (gross).

Larry David doesn’t understand crypto, so that means this emerging industry must be pretty, pretty, pretty good.

Effectiveness: 6/10

According to The New York Times, FTX and ad agency dentsuMB considered 80 scripts before deciding on this concept, which positions decentralized finance as a light bulb-like innovation. Then, after four days of filming with the “Seinfeld” co-creator, the ad took 280 hours to edit, condensing 7.5 hours of footage into 60 seconds — then, they spent another 200 hours to create teasers for their ad.

All in all, you gotta respect the effort (plus, Larry David is my problematic fave). But damn. That’s a lot of time and money to go into an ad that doesn’t teach you anything about how crypto works.

Cringe: 10/10

The ad features Larry David.

Crypto.com

Yet another crypto exchange with an exorbitant marketing budget, Crypto.com took a similar approach to FTX. They wanted star power, and they wanted to convince viewers that cryptocurrency is just a natural next step for technology. But their choice of talent was maybe more familiar for sports fans. In the 30-second spot, LeBron James tells a younger version of himself that “if you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots.” Then, a Crypto.com logo appears on the screen.

Effectiveness: 7/10

We like to see sports stars on TV. But this ad told us even less about crypto than Coinbase and FTX did. Then again, this ad probably cost way less than FTX’s ad, rife with costumes and set changes and special effects.

Cringe: 8/10

I want to know more about the physics involved here. How did LeBron go back in time? Will telling his younger self about crypto rupture our current timeline so that LeBron never made the NBA, meaning that South Florida never had a successful professional sports team in the twenty-first century? So many questions.

Meta Quest 2

Not only did Facebook rebrand to Meta, but they also rebranded their VR headset from the Oculus Quest — the name of the VR company they acquired — to just the Meta Quest.

The ad is confusing and depressing. Basically, some animatronic musicians — who work together at a Chuck E. Cheese-like place — lose their jobs and can’t hang out anymore. But by using their Meta Quest 2, they can forget about life’s challenges and be legless avatars together in Horizon Worlds, the company’s social gathering app.

Effectiveness: 3/10 

If the goal is brand recognition, well okay then. But the ad comes off kind of like, “Are you unsatisfied with the real world? Try the metaverse!” Also, Horizon Worlds is nowhere near as polished as the ad makes it seem, so minus points for ingenuity.

Cringe: 9/10

They could have tried to hire Larry David, but they did not.

Google Pixel 6

To showcase its Pixel 6 phone, Google collaborated with superstar Lizzo to highlight its Real Tone feature.

“Every single yearbook photo of mine has been terribly shot since I was a kid,” a voice narrates over a picture of friends in graduation garb — those with the darkest complexions blend into the background of the photo.

Then, Google shows photos taken with its Real Tone feature, which uses computational photography technology to properly expose photos of people with varying skin tones. The photos are gorgeous, displayed while Lizzo sings an unreleased track.

Effectiveness: 10/10

They got a new Lizzo song in their commercial. To quote TechCrunch’s own Annie Saunders, “I did not watch the Super Bowl, but I did see Lizzo’s Pixel ad on Instagram, and everything Lizzo does is Right and Good.”

Cringe: 2/10

There’s really nothing cringe here, but you could say Google’s market share in the smart phone business compared to Apple is a little cringe for them.

T-Mobile

Miley Cyrus and her godmother Dolly Parton teamed up to advertise T-Mobile’s 5G network in a series of two 30-second spots. In the first ad, Dolly Parton appears in a PSA, urging people to switch over from AT&T or Verizon for the sake of their phones. Then, she calls Miley, urging her to use her voice to save the phones. In the next ad, we see Miley belting out heartfelt lyrics like “let’s do it for the phones/they do so much for you” in a recording studio. She even belts, quote, “T-Mobile” while wearing a black blazer and leather gloves.

Effectiveness: 7/10

I paid attention, because I think Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus are fun. They might have punched down at other networks’ allegedly worse 5G coverage, but hey, in the spirit of football, go for that tackle or something.

Cringe: 9/10

It’s giving cheugy, not camp.

Uber Eats

On Uber Eats, you can order home essentials like tinfoil, sponges and candles — not just food. So, the ad shows us what happens when celebrities like Jennifer Coolidge, Gwyneth Paltrow, Trevor Noah and Nicholas Braun get confused about what is or is not food.

Effectiveness: 8/10

I now know that I can get tinfoil in a pinch on Uber Eats. But this feels like it’s covering up a marketing “oopsie,” like maybe when they launched Uber Eats, they should’ve chosen a name that would encompass what they refer to as both “eats and not eats.”

Cringe: 8/10

They used the song “Oh No” by Capone, which went viral on TikTok about a year ago. It’s kind of cringe to appeal to a younger audience by leveraging a trend that is no longer relevant.

Amazon

Since the release of smart home, voice-controlled devices, Amazon has had to mitigate a recurring fear among consumers: is Alexa watching me? Does she know too much? What if she becomes too powerful?

But, Amazon decided to show an audience of millions of viewers what would happen if Alexa could read your mind. When actress Scarlett Johansson wakes up next to her husband, Colin Jost from “Saturday Night Live”, Alexa reads his mind and places an order for extra-strength mouth wash. When Johansson wants Jost to stop talking, Alexa activates their loud blender.

Effectiveness: 6/10

Ultimately, Jost and Johansson decide that mind-reading devices would ultimately be bad, but… I guess the point of the commercial is to entertain, not to explain what the product does? Jost does successfully ask his smart device to turn on the TV, though, which does display some of Alexa’s less-terrifying skills. It’s because it’s like she can read your mind, she doesn’t actually read your mind … right?

Cringe: 7/10

The ad was kind of funny! But laughing at an advertisement made by Amazon is cringe. We are bringing the cringe here, it’s our fault.

Amazon teased that Prime Video will become the exclusive home for Thursday night football, marking the first year of an 11-year deal between Amazon and the NFL.

Effectiveness: 9/10

Starting September 15, fans can watch Thursday night football games exclusively on Prime Video. It’s clear! It’s short! It’s an advertisement specifically geared toward the audience of football fans, and guess who watches the Super Bowl? Football fans!

Cringe: 5/10 

“We have to live in this world without games all the way until next season,” the voiceover tells us while someone grows a huge, unruly beard due to his post-football depression. Bestie, other sports exist!

Those Super Bowl ad spots paid off for a number of tech companies not just in terms of exposure, but also app installs, a new report indicates. But Coinbase’s viral ad — which just bounced a QR code around on a black screen like the old DVD screensaver — outperformed the group, with installs jumping 309% week-over-week after the ad’s airing Super Bowl Sunday, February 13, and it continued to climb by another 286% the following day.

The new data comes from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which crunched the numbers to see how well the Super Bowl ads performed for the mobile-first brands that advertised during the big game. While the firm can’t share the actual download figures due to non-disclosure agreements with clients, its data can provide a look at what sort of impact these ads had. (This data is for U.S. app stores only.)

Coinbase, as it turned out, wasn’t the only crypto app to do well. Among the top five apps whose ads delivered strong download growth, three were crypto apps. In addition to Coinbase, crypto trading platform eToro grew app installs by 132% week-over-week on February 13, and by 82% on February 14. Meanwhile, Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, whose ad featured “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David, saw a 130% boost in downloads week-over-week on February 13, followed by 81% growth the next day.

Combined, Coinbase, eToro and FTX saw their U.S. installs grow by a collective 279% on February 13 compared to the week prior. This continued into the following day, when week-over-week download growth reached 252%.

The other apps in the top 5 on Super Bowl Sunday were sportsbooks. The DraftKings Sportsbook app saw downloads pop 197% week-over-week on Sunday, just behind Coinbase. Caesars Sportsbook followed, seeing 147% week-over-week gains, earning it a spot in the top 3.

Rounding out the top 10, in order, was online car buying platform Vroom (111% download growth), kid fintech Greenlight (+89%), another online car buying platform Carvana (+53%), streamer AMC+ (+38%), and Meta’s Oculus (+25% — surprising, given its bizarre and depressing ad.)

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

While download growth is one signal of the advertisement’s success, another is the app’s rank, which measures a combination of downloads, velocity and other factors.

In some cases, the brand’s Super Bowl ad prompted an immediate jump in terms of new installs, but not all ads benefited in the same way. Plus, some apps would have likely seen a boost in installs, regardless of their ad spend — like the sports betting apps or those that had a more practical use, like Peacock and YouTube TV.

But the rank can offer an indication of how popular these brands were before their ad aired.

For example, Oculus was ranked No. 102 Overall on the U.S. iOS App Store on Saturday and only moved to No. 100 on Sunday, then fell even lower on Monday to No. 175, according to data from Apptopia. That shows that even if it saw 25% download growth, as Sensor Tower says, it didn’t drive a large number of new users to try the app.

Meanwhile, Coinbase went from No. 124 Overall on Sunday, then crashed due to the huge traffic increase. By Monday, however, it was the No. 2 app on the U.S. App Store. Other top apps on Monday included Peacock TV (No. 1), HBO Max (No. 6), FanDuel Sportsbook (No. 12), DraftKings Sportsbook (No. 25), Disney+ (No. 31) and YouTube TV (No. 42).

Another interesting thing about this year’s Super Bowl ads, Sensor Tower realized, was that just as these digital brands were embracing traditional TV ads, traditional brands were turning to digital ads.

Per Pathmatics’ data, the top 10 advertisers by spend on over-the-top video platforms like Peacock, Paramount+ and Hulu, were mostly traditional brands. Weight Watchers, for example, spent approximately $1.4 million in marketing on those streaming services, while Volvo and Nike spent $1 million+ and $623,000, respectively. Grocery tracker Basketful — the only one in the top 10 that was a mobile-first brand — spent approximately $486,000. It was followed by Geico, which spent around $413,000.

Image Credits: Sensor Tower

Parent company Comcast reported NBCUniversal’s Q1 2022 earnings on Thursday, noting its newer streaming service, Peacock, ended the first quarter of 2022 with 28 million monthly active accounts, up from the 24.5 million Comcast reported for the platform at the end of 2021. Of those, 13 million are paying customers, up from 9 million in the prior quarter, up 44%.

“We added 4 million paid subscribers to end the first quarter … We’ve seen a 25% increase in hours of engagement year over year,” Comcast CEO and chairman Brian Roberts said. “Given the natural ebbs and flows of our content slate, we do not anticipate seeing this type of growth every quarter.

“We expect more modest subscriber gains until we get to the back half of this year. Our fourth quarter should be fantastic, with sporting events such as Sunday Night Football, Premier League and the World Cup,” he added.

While Comcast executives do not anticipate growth to increase at a fast rate, the final quarter of 2022 will be another substantial period for the streaming service since the fledgling service will become the hub of 18 MLB games in May. Also, NBC shows will move from Hulu to Peacock, becoming the new exclusive streaming home this Fall.

In comparison, Netflix lost 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter. For a veteran streaming platform to suffer such a loss when a younger competitor rises in popularity is highly notable. Due to live sporting events, Peacock and other streamers capture the attention of sports fans. If Netflix continues to ignore this strategy, subscription numbers will most likely continue to stall.

Last quarter, NBCU revealed that Peacock ended 2021 with 9 million paid subscribers. During the Q4 Comcast earnings call this past January, Roberts said that, at that time, many of Peacock’s 24.5 million monthly active accounts were choosing to subscribe to the $5 ad-supported tier over the $10 ad-free tier.

Comcast research showed that 80% of consumers prefer an ad-supported service rather than paying a higher cost for no ads. Almost all the major streaming services have explored the possibility of ad-supported subscription plans — most recent streamers being Netflix and Disney+. Ever since Peacock included this cheaper offering, it has seen more growth.

NBCUniversal’s EBITA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) rose 7.4% to $1.6 billion. Despite this, the Peacock losses were $456 million on revenues of $472 million. In comparison, there was a $277 million loss a year ago on revenues of $91 million.

Peacock’s operating loss for the quarter was a result of the higher programming and production costs associated with the Super Bowl and the Olympics, as well as the return of its primetime schedule, Comcast said. The Super Bowl and Olympics generated big revenue numbers, bringing in $519 million and $963 million, respectively.

“Our media business is performing well, and the scale of our reach is underscored by our successful broadcast of the Super Bowl and the Olympics in the same week. These events were viewed by more than 200 million people in the U.S. across NBCUniversal’s platforms, including Peacock,” Roberts said.

During Thursday’s Q1 investor’s call, Michael Cavanagh, chief financial officer of Comcast, remarked, “We continue to expect Peacock’s EBITA loss will be roughly $2.5 billion for the year. However, taking into consideration the timing of content launches … We would expect losses to be higher in the second half of the year.”

In other news, cable giants Comcast and Charter announced yesterday that they would team up to build a streaming platform. The Charter venture “demonstrates the benefits of our focus on innovation and enables us to bring entertainment aggregation and streaming products that run off our global technology platform to millions more customers,” said Roberts.