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Amazon.com, T-Mobile Win Tech Ad Contest At Super Bowl 50
Tech companies advertising during Super Bowl 50 on CBS ( CBS ) on Sunday didn’t exactly set the Internet on fire with their commercials. None mustered the buzz of Heinz’s wiener dogs dressed like hot dogs or Mountain Dew’s creepy PuppyMonkeyBaby. Still, a number of tech company commercials were well received by the general public and critics alike. USA Today’s Ad Meter ranked Amazon.com ’s ( AMZN ) star-studded commercial as the top tech company commercial during the big game. Amazon’s first-ever Super Bowl ad featured actors Alec Baldwin and Jason Schwartzman, football great Dan Marino and hip-hop artist Missy Elliott. The e-commerce giant used the comic ad to promote its Echo smart-speaker with Alexa voice controls. The Amazon ad also was listed among the best commercials in post-game articles by the Verge, the Chicago Tribune, BGR and Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog. Also scoring well in the USA Today audience ranking were T-Mobile ( TMUS ) ads featuring rapper Drake and TV and radio personality Steve Harvey. In one commercial, Drake pokes fun at his hit song “Hotline Bling.” In the other, Harvey makes light of his recent Miss Universe pageant gaffe. T-Mobile had three of the top 10 most shared ads of Super Bowl 50, according to video ad tech company Unruly . (The third was an extended version of the Drake commercial.) Audience measurement company iSpot.tv said the T-Mobile ads earned the highest “digital share of voice” of any tech company ads during Super Bowl 50. The iSpot.tv measurement is based on online views and social media actions. The T-Mobile ads were listed among the big game’s best commercials by the Washington Post, Vox, ESPN, Bleacher Report, TVLine.com, BGR and Sports Illustrated. The top tech ad in terms of social media mentions was LG’s OLED TV commercial starring Liam Neeson, according to Infegy . Coming in second among tech companies was PayPal ’s ( PYPL ) first Super Bowl commercial. However, some critics ranked the LG commercial as among the worst of the night. Chicago Tribune writer Steve Johnson said the warmed-over “Tron” ripoff didn’t make any sense. “Here’s a case of wasting a perfectly good celebrity,” he said. “The TV maker has Liam Neeson speaking ominously to a young guy about ‘the future’ and ‘they want to stop it.’ There is a motorcycle chase, suggesting high stakes. But who, really, wants to ‘stop’ a better kind of TV?” Other tech companies that advertised during the Super Bowl included Apartments.com, Fitbit ( FIT ), Intuit ( INTU ), Squarespace and Wix.com ( WIX ). GoPro ( GPRO ) ran its latest commercial in regional markets, such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, during the game, according to Adweek . RELATED: Tech Firms Draft Neeson, Schwarzenegger For Super Bowl 50 Ads .
2 Top Stocks Rally As The Force Awakens Them
Few industry groups escaped the market’s wrath Monday. IBD’s Leisure-Toys/Games group was one that did. It climbed more than 1%, fueled by a heavy-volume advance by Hasbro ( HAS ), which reported Q4 results ahead of the open. The Pawtucket, R.I.-based company earned $1.39 a share, up 14% from last year and 9 cents over views. Revenue climbed 13% to $1.465 billion, topping forecasts for $1.365 billion. Sales rose 23%, excluding pressure from the strong dollar. The 13% rise was Hasbro’s biggest quarterly sales gain in nearly five years. Results got a boost from toys based on Disney ‘s ( DIS ) “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” such as action figures, masks and lightsabers, and Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World” products. Sales from boys’ toys jumped 35%, but girls’ toys fell 17%. Hasbro advanced 1.5% Monday, reclaiming its 200-day moving average as it works on the right side of a seven-month consolidation. It’s been an outperformer, rising 11% this year. Highly regarded Fidelity Contrafund owned shares as of Dec. 31. The Transformers and Nerf maker raised its quarterly dividend by 11% to 51 cents a share. For the full year, Hasbro’s EPS rose 11% to $3.51 a share. Analysts expect a 12% increase this year and 9% the next. Global rights to produce Disney’s “Frozen” and other Disney Princess dolls transferred to Hasbro from Mattel this year. IBD’s toys and games subgroup rallied to No. 17 in Monday’s issue, up from No. 151 six weeks ago. It spiked more than 5% intraday Thursday, after Bloomberg reports that the two major toy makers began discussing a possible merger late last year. On Monday, Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner said on the company earnings conference call that he is open to potential “add-on acquisitions.” Mattel ( MAT ), which makes “Star Wars”-based Hot Wheels toys, last week reported Q4 profit that increased 21% to 63 cents a share on flat sales of $1.99 billion, beating forecasts on both the top and bottom lines. It benefited from an 8% revenue increase in Barbie dolls and a 26% jump in its wheels segment, which includes Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars, on a constant-currency basis. The stock soared 14% Tuesday to a 14-month high, surpassing a 28.03 handle buy point in robust trade. It’s well extended past the entry. The El Segundo, Calif.-based company’s Q4 profit marked its first quarterly gain in more than two years. Analysts expect full-year EPS to resume growth at 12% this year and 25% in 2017, after big declines the past two years. Mattel leads Hasbro with respective Composite ratings of 92 and 90, but its EPS Rating lags at 46 to 78. Mattel has a 97 RS, reflecting the stock’s 18% advance this year, while Hasbro’s RS is a respectable 87. Other stocks in the toy maker group include Jakks Pacific ( JAKK ), which is trading below 7 a share and near nine-month lows. It has a subpar 61 Composite Rating.