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Lay’s has two hot potatoes for the upcoming Super Bowl.Today, the company confirmed to ADWEEK that it will have two ads in the upcoming Big Game, with one spotlighting the company’s local farmers and another featuring a fan activation that’ll deliver free chips to thousands.“This is a big year for Lay’s. We’re relaunching our brand, and we decided to go in a big way. It’s not only on the campaign in the Super Bowl, but we are doing a complete rebranding,” Hernán Tantardini, CMO, PepsiCo Foods US, told ADWEEK. “So for the first time, we’re going to do two different…
Europe invests billions into early-stage climate startups, only to watch too many fail at Series B, according to a recent report. But new funds are being raised to fill this gap, and Spain-based Mundi Ventures’ latest fund, Kembara Fund I, is one of them. After securing a €350 million commitment from the European Investment Fund under the European Tech Champions Initiative in 2024, Mundi Ventures has just completed a €750 million first close for Kembara, its fifth fund and largest to date. Regulatory filing from Spain reveals that the fund — focused on deep tech — could even stretch its…
More Bags We LikePhotograph: Adrienne SoJanji Revy Pack for $170: I was going to include this as my best running backpack, since one way you can sneak exercise into your day is if you run to and fro from your home to your workplace, kids’ school, or coffee shop. However, this backpack sold out before I could write about it, so the hunt continues.Rains Mini Backpack for $95: This gorgeous, Scandinavian-inspired backpack is waterproof, fits a 13-inch laptop, and comes in at under $100. Former WIRED reviewer Medea Giordano loved its slim profile and stylish looks.Photograph: Adrienne SoAway Commuter Backpack…
In its fourth consecutive Super Bowl ad, the “He Gets Us” campaign is taking aim at the capitalist dream of “more.”The 60-second spot, dubbed “More,” will air during the second half of the Super Bowl on Feb. 8, starts off with a young girl dressed in pink, clutching an armful of dolls while sitting in front of dozens more.“The one who dies with the most toys wins!” a child-like voiceover says. Cameras flash and a frenetic soundtrack takes over. The rest of the spot is a series of short clips that run the gamut from gambling and scrolling social media…
Snap is on a mission to diversify its revenue sources — moving from a business model in which it largely chases ad revenue to one where it can also make money through subscriptions and, eventually, hardware. The company’s latest quarterly earnings report shows that, so far, the firm is having moderate success with that strategy. In Q4, Snap’s revenue was $1.7 billion, which is up 10% year-over-year. Its average revenue per user was also up, slightly (to $3.62 from $3.44). The company’s net income was $45 million, up from $9 million the previous year, its earnings report shows. The company…
Mistral AI has released a new family of AI models that it claims will clear the path to seamless conversation between people speaking different languages.On Wednesday, the Paris-based AI lab released two new speech-to-text models: Voxtral Mini Transcribe V2 and Voxtral Realtime. The former is built to transcribe audio files in large batches and the latter for nearly real-time transcription, within 200 milliseconds; both can translate between 13 languages. Voxtral Realtime is freely available under an open source license.At 4 billion parameters, the models are small enough to run locally on a phone or laptop—a first in the speech-to-text field,…
This story was originally published in On Background with Mark Stenberg, a free, weekly newsletter that explores the key themes shaping the media industry. You can sign up for it here.In February 2021, Robin Thurston raised $150 million to acquire Outside Media, which at the time included two outdoor publishers, a mapping system, and a registration platform.Five years and dozens of acquisitions later, the company now known as Outside Interactive bears little resemblance to its former namesake. Part of the identity shift comes from its newfound commercial stability. Last year, the company brought in $125 million in revenue, a 23% year-over-year increase,…
Anthropic’s Super Bowl commercial, one of four ads the AI lab dropped on Wednesday, begins with the word “BETRAYAL” splashed boldly across the screen. The camera pans to a man earnestly asking a chatbot (obviously intended to depict ChatGPT) for advice on how to talk to his mom. The bot, portrayed by a blonde woman, offers some classic bits of advice. Start by listening. Try a nature walk! And then twists into an ad for a fictitious (we hope!) cougar-dating site called Golden Encounters. Anthropic finishes the spot by saying that while ads are coming to AI, they won’t be…
There is concern that subscribers might be negatively affected if Netflix acquires Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming and movie studios businesses. One of the biggest fears is that the merger would lead to higher prices due to less competition for Netflix.During a US Senate hearing Tuesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos suggested that the merger would have an opposite effect.Sarandos was speaking at a hearing held by the US Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, “Examining the Competitive Impact of the Proposed Netflix-Warner Brothers Transaction.”Sarandos aimed to convince the subcommittee that Netflix wouldn’t become a monopoly in…
The numbers$113.8 billion—Alphabet’s Q4 revenue, up +18% year-over-year.$95.9 billion—Revenue generated by Google Services during the quarter, which includes Google Search, subscriptions, platforms, devices, and YouTube ads. $13.6 billion—YouTube advertising. $17.7 billion—Google Cloud revenue, up +48% from the same period in 2024.Over 750 million—Gemini monthly active users.The watercooler talkGoogle’s parent company, Alphabet, enjoyed a second consecutive quarter of over $100 billion in revenue, recording nearly $114 billion in the final quarter of 2025. The company boasted that, for the first time, its annual revenues exceeded $400 billion. Executives noted that more than 120,000 enterprises, including Airbus, Honeywell, Salesforce, and Shopify, use their AI tools,…
Google’s AI chatbot Gemini has surpassed 750 million monthly active users (MAUs), according to the company’s fourth-quarter 2025 earnings. This figure illustrates the rapid consumer adoption of Gemini, which has quickly become a prominent player in the AI space. Last quarter, Google reported 650 million monthly active users for Gemini, indicating substantial growth in a short period. In comparison, Meta AI has reported nearly 500 million monthly users. However, while Gemini is gaining traction, it still trails behind its biggest rival, ChatGPT, which is estimated to have around 810 million MAUs in late 2025. The recently revealed number comes on…
The latest mobile phone isn’t always the greatest. Despite a series of newer, updated Pixel 10 models, we still think the previous generation’s Pixel 9a is more than enough phone for most people. Not only does it have great battery life and feature support, but it often goes on sale for well under $500. In this case, Best Buy has the 128-GB Pixel 9a discounted to just $399, and it’s available in all four colors: Iris, Obsidian, Peony, and Porcelain.Photograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuPhotograph: Julian ChokkattuWhile we also like the newer Pixel 10 phones, which sport faster wireless…
It didn’t start well. Even Brian Niccol would surely accept that the optics of his first few weeks at Starbucks back in the summer of 2024 were hardly ideal. First, there was the messy scrap about wanting to work from home while leading a company insisting its managers return to the office. When your California abode is a thousand miles from headquarters, accusations of executive hypocrisy are inevitable. Then there was the salary: $96 million for his first four months’ work. That’s 6,666 times more than the median Starbucks barista earns. A multiple that followed him around like a corporate albatross.And then something…
Starbase, the company town that Elon Musk’s SpaceX created in South Texas, is forming its own police squad. The city’s commission approved an ordinance during a special meeting Tuesday that would create a municipal police department, subject to approval from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). The department will be run by a chief of police elected by the city’s commission, and is expected to hire eight officers, according to local news outlet Valley Central. It could be up and running in a few months. “There is a lot of assets here with the operations of SpaceX,” Starbase city…
Some children affected by measles in the ongoing South Carolina outbreak have developed a serious complication of the disease called encephalitis, or swelling of the brain, state epidemiologist Linda Bell said on Wednesday.The South Carolina measles outbreak began in October with a handful of infections. As of February 3, cases have climbed to 876, with 700 of those being reported since the beginning of the year. The surge could mean another bad year of measles for the United States, which had more than 2,267 cases—the highest in 30 years—in 2025. Declining vaccination rates across the country are driving the resurgence.Encephalitis…
The numbers$5.18 billion—Fox revenue for fiscal second quarter, a $104 million increase.1%—Ad revenue increase due to higher sports and news pricing, Tubi growth, and MLB postseason, despite a difficult comparison to a record political cycle last year.47%—Fox News ad scatter pricing increased year over year.$247 million—Net income in the quarter, down from $388 million in the prior year, with the company saying expenses were primarily due to higher sports programming rights amortization and production costs, and higher digital marketing costs.The watercooler talkFox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch was effusive about the company’s second quarter during an earnings call on Wednesday. According…