The Winners And Losers of Super Bowl Ads & S&P 500 Passes 5,000

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0:28Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, the S &P has walked 5 ,000 points, and can it walk 5 ,000 more? Then Super Bowl Sunday came and went, and even though I lost literally all my bets, the commercials were actually pretty good this year. It's Monday, February 12th. Let's ride.

0:53Happy super sick Monday, everyone. The post-Super Bowl holiday where a bunch of people curiously come down with the flu and can't come into work. Today, 16.1 million employees are expected to call out sick, according to the UKG Workforce Institute. In fact, 10 million have already requested the day off. In all, 14 % of U.S. employees plan to miss at least some work today, including the NFL scriptwriters who wrapped up one of the most compelling TV seasons in memory and deserve some time off. In the finale, the Chiefs defeated the 49ers 25-22 in overtime. cementing themselves as the next NFL dynasty.

1:34They became the first team to win back-to-back Super Bowls in almost two decades. And it's also their third world championship in five years. I personally believe every single person who called in sick today, they definitely are ill. If I ran for president though, my platform would be making Super Bowl Monday a national holiday. Just give the people off, make them not use a day off. But also I'm feeling a little bit hungover, not because I overindulge, but because I reneged on everything I said on the show. I said I was picking the Chiefs. I ended up backing the 49ers across the board. It didn't go well for me, Neil.

2:09And you said Tails never fails. That's the biggest thing. Okay. It half failed because in overtime it was Tails. So I'm going to take a 50 % credit on that. All right. Before we jump into our show, let's hear from today's sponsor, Veeam. Neil, I noticed one company was missing from the Super Bowl commercials yesterday, and that was Veeam. Yeah. That's because they're actually smart with their money. Why spend millions of dollars to have an A-list celeb promote your brand to 200 million people when you can have Toby and Neil who are at least, you know, D-list celebs for a much better price? More bang for your buck.

2:41Veeam would rather spend that dough on keeping your business's data safe. But seriously, Veeam, if you do run a Super Bowl ad next year, you have our numbers. We can even provide our own hair and makeup team. Head to Veeam.com to see how you can make your business radically resilient. That's V-E-E-A-M dot com.

3:25Jimmy Fallon, series premiere tonight on NBC. Usher was sweaty. We didn't get a Travis Kelsey on-field proposal last night, and the game itself was kind of boring. So there's only one Super Bowl storyline left to discuss this morning, and that is the commercials. Super Bowl commercials provide a nice lens into which industries and companies are doing well enough to splurge on a$7 million 30-second ad to reach 200 million people. this year china-based e-commerce brand tamu was a huge presence again airing not one not two but three commercials none of them very good hollywood made its presence known too with the wicked movie getting a full minute ad as well as a prominent deadpool 3 trailer celebs were fully back in style while social media influencers started to come for their throne a-list stars like messy j-lo christopher walken beyonce and ben affleck dominated the ads this time around and to no one's surprise, there was not a single crypto commercial this time around.

4:23But there were two ads from Google and Microsoft showcasing their AI products. All in all, a solid showing from the brands. Neil, what stood out to you from this year's slate of ads? Mine is that the Super Bowl commercial is not just a Super Bowl commercial these days. You run a commercial with a celebrity because you have to have a celebrity. I mean, I don't remember a single commercial that didn't have one. At the same time, as soon as that ad runs, you have that celebrity or the brand post the commercial or some sort of supplemental content on social media. And that way you sort of take your$7 million that you're spending for 30 seconds and expand it into something a lot bigger.

5:02So it lives outside of the TV. I think a great example of this was Beyonce and Verizon. Beyonce had a full minute commercial with Verizon where she, at the very end, she said new music dropping soon. Right after that, she dropped two new singles and teased an album. And that's the sort of holistic approach you see brands taking. I'm so glad you brought that up because what I want to call out is not just the fact that they leverage the time after the ad. Now these brands are also building up hype before they run their ads. Two that I want to call out are Duolingo and CeraVe. CeraVe, which is the skincare brand, did this thing where they kind of leaked all these photos of Michael Cera carrying the product around seemingly organically on social media and built up this kind of hype.

5:41Like, oh, what is going on with Michael Cera, CeraVe? And then ran the Super Bowl ad. Same with Duolingo. they had this whole storyline where a famous Miami TikTok plastic surgeon gave their owl a Brazilian butt lift, and then that translated into their actual commercial. So you're totally right in the sense that it's not just a 30-second ad. It is a much wider campaign hitting on these brand notes. And it was helpful for some brands like Uber, who ran a spot. They introduced it a couple days before, but they made light. They joked a little bit about peanut allergies. And so advocates of allergies came out and said, they criticized it.

6:22They said, can you please edit this because you're making light of a life-threatening situation? And then Uber Eats went back to the drawing board, edited it out, and then ran the commercial. So there was this whole editing process that came from someone releasing an ad a little bit early. Another big thing I identified was nostalgia. There was the Friends cast sighting with David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston for Uber Eats. T-Mobile and Nerds both used the theme song from Flashdance. Also, there was this Kawasaki ad where the mullet was the main character. So there was a lot of looking backwards as well this year.

6:56We got to talk a little bit about AI as well, because remember, there's always kind of one industry or brand that seems to co-opt and take over the Super Bowl. Remember, like the Crypto Bowl was a big deal with the Larry David commercial, the Matt Damon commercial. This time, it wasn't quite a full takeover for AI, but we did see Microsoft do an ad for their co-pilot software, kind of showing how this wasn't going to take over people's... One of the big fears is it's going to take jobs and going to replace people. They tried to show it that it was augmenting the creative work of a lot of people.

7:28So I think they struck the right note with their AI ad as well. To me, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Tom Brady ad for Dunkin', B &B bands, the Dunk Kings, and then they actually released the tracksuits for purchase later. I think those are going to sell it. Great Valentine's Day gift. Great Valentine's gift. There's no way you're going to actually be able to buy one of those. I'm not certain. OK, moving on. Welcome to the stock market where everything's made up, but the points do matter. And the points, well, they've never been higher. For the first time in history, the S &P 500 is starting the week above 5 ,000 points, a beautiful whole number that reflects Wall Street's enthusiasm over a U.S.

8:06economy that has continued to expand even as interest rates have soared, defying all the odds. The push to 5 ,000 began last November when AI fever and the possibility of rate cuts combined like Voltron to send the index soaring 20 % in the span of a few months. The index has doubled in value since 2017 when it was at 2 ,500 points. What does this mean for you? Well, your brokerage account is probably very, very happy. Containing the largest U.S. companies, the S &P 500 is the most widely tracked index in the world. And as of 2022, investors had$11.4 trillion in investments that track the S &P or use it as a benchmark.

8:47The stocks, Toby, they only go up. It's been a historic run, no matter how you look at it. I mean, it's the 10th record in less than a month for the index. It closed out its 14th winning weekend in the last 15. This has been on a romp since, yeah, you mentioned November, since really around Halloween, where this kind of AI fever kind of gripped the market. Let's look at the downstream effects of what it means for a stock market that is ripping. You mentioned that a lot of people have some sort of exposure to it in their retirement accounts or something. It is leading to a lot more retirees. The U.S.

9:21has had 2.7 million more retirees than expected due to the performance where you look at your nest egg, the nest egg is big, you say, all right, let's put it in my two weeks' notice here. So, that's definitely one downstream effect of this. Another that's super interesting is that the real estate market in Silicon Valley, which had been kind of stagnant over the past few years as we were coming out of COVID, is now booming. I mean, homes are selling faster in San Jose than in any other large U.S. city. And number two is Seattle. What do those have in common? That has a large concentration of tech workers.

9:55And we know we've talked about tech layoffs for many months now. But a lot of tech workers are doing really well because they are awarded in stock in addition to their salaries. And they're looking at their portfolios. They have a lot of money to spend. So now you're seeing homes in Silicon Valley and San Jose going hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking price. And the rising stock market has really raised the fortunes of the real estate market there. Yeah, it's just been a really solid earnings season in general. not just the big tech, not just the Magnificent Seven, which obviously has done a lot of the heavy lifting.

10:31But you've seen things like Disney, Chipotle, even Ford had a relatively strong earnings season. So it's not just the big tech companies, even though those do make the majority of the index. Looking ahead, this whole rally has been fueled by hopes that cooling inflation will eventually lead to the Fed dialing down its interest rates. So that is going to be the big question mark on if this rally can sustain and if the Fed actually follows through on kind of those promises. All right, let's move on. You guys remember that famous gag from Austin Powers where Dr. Evil puts his pinky up to his mouth and says$1 million.

11:08Well, Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI, just did that, but he asked for$7 trillion instead. reports came out last week that sam wants to reshape the global semiconductor industry to meet the demands of the ai revolution a project that he thinks will take trillions to pull off let me say that number again for everyone seven trillion because this is the real amount that sam is reportedly shopping around not some exaggeration that number is difficult to contextualize but to try to put it into perspective that is more than two times india's gdp and bigger than microsoft and Apple's combined market caps.

11:46He's reportedly been in talks with investors like the UAE government, as well as SoftBank CEO, Masayoshi Sun, to see if they want to pitch in some cash. Neil, only$527 billion worth of chips were sold globally last year. Is Sam serious here? Yes, yes, he is serious. He has been sounding this alarm for months now that we do not have enough chip-making capacity to fill the AI boom. these chip fab plants need so much money. They cost tens of billions of dollars each. And with our growing demand for generative AI, every company is now investing in these chips. Only NVIDIA is kind of making them or has the kind of graphics processing units that people want.

12:29They're on back order for a long time. So he thinks that there's a lot of demand to be had for these particular chips. They're really expensive to build. They take years to build. so he's trying to start these things now it's very unclear whether this deal or anything like it will come about but he has done this globe trotting to woo investors over the past few weeks we know that's true yeah it's not just the chip manufacturing it's also just the whole energy cost associated with it as well the idea is to just increase the capacity of the entire network network altman is pitching a partnership with open ai chip makers and power providers so put up the money, build these chip foundries that would be then run by existing chip manufacturers.

13:12So it's not like a thing where he's raising money for a specific company to deploy this capital. It's kind of just a rising tide floats all boats situation, but still$7 trillion is just a stupid amount of money because that money like doesn't exist out there. If you look at the total amount of corporate debt issued by the U S government last year, that was just$1.4 trillion. So So the money is probably not going to come in at exactly that. We'll see. We'll see. But what's interesting to me also is there's a geopolitical angle because chip making is a very sensitive industry. It powers the military.

13:45And the U.S. has been very adamant over the past couple of years of bringing chip making domestically and producing it in the U.S. What Sam Altman is doing is going to the UAE and other governments that we're not sure we're wholly allies with or maybe they're aligned with China as well. So you already have lawmakers cautioning about one of the firms, one of the UAE firms that Sam Altman has been talking to, G42, questioning their ties with China. So I think as Sam Altman hops around the globe trying to raise$7 trillion or whatever he's trying to do, I think these geopolitical tensions are going to bubble up to the surface because the U.S.

14:22may block a deal if Sam Altman tries to make a partnership with a government or an entity that we're not perfectly allies with. Lord grant me the confidence to ask for$7 trillion to fund my projects. Sam Altman is asking for$7 trillion, but I'm asking you to get excited because after this word from our sponsors, we have our winners of the weekend segment coming up.

14:44This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

15:10Raise the rudders! Raise the sails! Raise the sails! Captain, an unidentified ship is approaching. Over. Roger. Wait, is that an enterprise sails solution? Reach sails professionals, not professional sailors. With LinkedIn ads, you can target the right people by industry, job title, and more. Start converting your B2B audience today. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free$250 credit for the next one. Get started today at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Welcome to the winners of the weekend, the segment where Toby and I pick one news item to highlight from the past few days.

15:48My winner is China's high-speed railway system, which is flexing on the rest of the world right now. And that's because on Saturday, Lunar New Year began. Shout out Year of the Dragon. And around the holiday, tons of people in China leave cities and head back home to celebrate with their families. And by tons of people, I may have low-balled it. This travel period is considered the largest annual human migration on the globe. A record nine billion trips are expected to be made during the 40-day travel rush. And just to give you a sense of how packed these trains are, last Wednesday, 13.1 million passengers rode on China's rail system.

16:26That's almost half of Amtrak's total ridership for 2023. It's making me have secondhand embarrassment for the U.S.'s transit system because these numbers are insane. Although I do just want to give a quick shout out to the MTA in New York because we're transporting our subways are transporting around 3.6 million people per day and that's not just a holiday rush that's every day so even though i do have feelings of inadequacy just shout out to the mta it's just truly stunning uh how china's built up its high speed rail network it didn't have any before 2008 when it started building them for uh ahead of the olympics and in the past what is that 16 years did i do that right it's whatever it is longer than you think It's built nearly 25 ,000 miles of high-speed tracks since 2008.

17:14The second biggest country with high-speed rail is Spain, which has just over 2 ,000 miles. And the United States, we barely have a high-speed rail, if you want to call the Acela that. That's under 500 miles. So this is China versus the rest of the world. You can get from Beijing to Shanghai, which is 820 miles, in about four hours. I looked up New York to Chicago is about the same distance. I looked up how long it would take. Well, the Lakeshore Limited, I could get there in just 19 hours and 32 minutes. Very, very convenient. I see why we are still a nation reliant on cars. Let's move on. So normally this is where I'd pick my winner of the weekend.

17:57But instead of doing that, I want to take a moment and share some sad news that occurred yesterday. Kelvin Kiptum, the world record holder in the marathon, passed away yesterday in a car accident at just 24 years old. As a runner and a fan of this sport, I cannot overstate how big a loss this is for the running community. Kiptum was incredible. He was the favorite to win the gold medal at the upcoming Olympics, and the world record he set last year was just 35 seconds away from breaking that mythical two-hour marathon mark. In his short career, he ran three of the seven fastest marathons ever.

18:32Yeah, I mean, you talk about him all the time. Tell the listeners sort of what made him special. He was so insane because he negative split his marathons, which is just not even a thing that happens at the highest level. When you see the Kipchoge's of the world, you see these other former world record holders, they would get slower as the race progressed. I mean, it's very natural. But Calvin Kipton would drop sub one hour second half of his marathons multiple times, which was just kind of unheard of at that level. Running a 59 second last half of a marathon in the Chicago Marathon was just truly it's mind boggling.

19:07Like he was just another level and another level of talent that we hadn't seen before. Let's move on. How do you know if something is unpopular with people? Well, if a crowd gathers around and lights it on fire, that's a pretty good indicator. That's what happened this weekend to a self-driving car operated by Waymo in San Francisco. Someone jumped on the hood, another person smashed in the windshield, while a crowd gathered to cover it in spray paint before eventually setting the car on fire. Now, the police haven't named a specific motive for the vandalism, but it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that general backlash against autonomous vehicles is a leading candidate.

19:47These feelings have been simmering in the city for a while now. The California DMV suspended Waymo rival Cruz from operating robo taxis in the state after a series of chaos inducing mishaps, including dragging a pedestrian under the car last year. And just last week, a Waymo car hit a cyclist. Neil, this wave of anti driverless car sentiment, it is growing. It is growing. And you're starting to see two camps form around this. On the one hand, you have the techno optimists who are watching these videos on social media of people setting fireworks in cars and burning it down to a carcass and saying, what are you people doing?

20:24Like this could be safer. We have to advance our society. Human drivers suck. You're not treating autonomous vehicles with the same standard as you are human vehicles. Because if you wanted to attack a human vehicle every time it got in a crash, we would have no cars left. And then you have the people on the other side being like, maybe obviously we don't condone destroying a car. But this is a reflection of the fact that the people of San Francisco have been part have been guinea pigs in this experiment that they did not ask to be a part of. So there are these two camps forming that I think will only grow in hostility over the next few years.

21:04Yeah, absolutely. It's something that all kind of hard tech and also a lot of transportation companies have had to deal with over time. Remember, there were full Instagram accounts dedicated towards people destroying the Bird and Lime scooters. A Waymo was literally attacked by a pedestrian with their fists in Arizona two years ago. And also, this brought to mind, remember the hitchhiking robot that successfully traversed Germany, Canada, Netherlands? It was destroyed almost immediately upon entering the U.S. in the city of Philadelphia, actually. So there is something about, I don't know, that we see these autonomous vehicles and it incites some sort of rage in people.

21:41But you are right. Some people do feel like they're on on consenting guinea pigs in a in a tech project. And we see those feelings of animosity spring up. There's also a sense of powerlessness because of the city and state divide. The state agency approved driverless vehicles to operate in San Francisco. Meanwhile, the city has no power over that, and the city is suing the state to review that license. So I think there's a sense of powerlessness. Like, we can't control this. This is the state government that is kind of mandating things and requiring we live in a certain way. And we are sort of pushing back on that.

22:17Obviously, vandalism is just the next level. OK, let's preview what you should look out for this week. If you're into political comedy, then I have a show for you. The Daily Show will be hosted by Jon Stewart tonight in a part-time return to the gig he left in 2015. Stewart will be hosting every Monday night through the presidential election. But back when he had his original run, he wasn't competing against TikTok, Instagram, YouTube for eyeballs. So it'll be interesting to see whether he can break through in this media environment. Also very smart of him to return in the 11 p.m. slot so he doesn't have to compete with the 7 a.m.

22:51drop of Morning Brew Daily Show. You forget that didn't exist last time Jon Stewart was at the helm as well. It is a busy week on Wall Street. Earnings season rolls on with Shopify, Coca-Cola, Airbnb, Coinbase, Crocs, and more reporting their quarterly financials. Then on Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index is expected to show more good news about inflation and raise hopes of a Fed rate cut. Yeah, I couldn't care less about any companies all about that inflation report. But fine, I will pick the C's, the Coca-Cola's, the Crocs, and the Coinbase's of the world. Sounds good. Okay, Valentine's Day is on Wednesday.

23:25Whether you're deeply in love or hopelessly alone, it's important to remember to eat a lot of chocolate. And Galentine's Day, a holiday created by Leslie Knope on Parks and Rec to celebrate women's friendship, is the day before. And I would like to introduce another potential alternative holiday, Palentine's Day, where you just go out to dinner with some of your pals. Just pal around for a little bit. I'm down for that. Okay. The next occupant of George Santos's former congressional seat will be decided in a special election on Long Island tomorrow. Whoever it ends up being, they probably won't be as good on Cameo, but they probably will make up less about their professional background.

24:01I kept seeing commercials for this race while watching the golf yesterday, and it was kind of a major vibe killer for me. I was getting ready for the Super Bowl and everything, and I kept getting these political ads. I know. It's February. You're like, all right, can we wait till at least the fall? Right. Tiger Woods will announce something today, most likely his new apparel line. Still can't believe Nike let him go. It's just sad to me. What is coming down the pipe? No, I think it is. He has a new apparel line. You could see in a picture he tweeted out that you saw his logo on certain things.