Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.

The 5 funniest Super Bowl ads

Earlier this week Ad Age published a post detailing the most liked Super Bowl LVII spots, according to consumer surveys conducted by iSpot’s Creative Assessment service (an offering that grew out of iSpot’s 2021 acquisition of Ace Metrix). To close out the week, here’s a short list of the Super Bowl ads that consumers thought were the funniest, also per iSpot. In order:

1. Planters, “The Roast of Mr. Peanut”
2. Pringles: “The Best of Us”
3. Doritos: “Try Another Angle”
4. Dunkin’: “‘Drive-Thru’ starring Ben Affleck”
5. T-Mobile: “New Year. New Neighbor”

Watch: Debating 2023 Super Bowl commercials

Related: The best and worst Super Bowl 2023 ads

Doritos gets a big Super Bowl boost from Jack Harlow’s social promotion

Rapper Jack Harlow, the star of the No. 3 ad above, “emerged as one of the Super Bowl’s breakout social media stars,” a spokesperson for influencer marketing platform CreatorIQ tells Ad Age Datacenter. According to CreatorIQ’s data, Harlow generated 1.2 million social media engagements (e.g., shares, likes and comments) and 14.5 million impressions across his eight Doritos social media posts related to his Big Game ad.

Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell

• “Jobless claims stay below 200,000 for fifth straight week: Labor market still healthy,” from MarketWatch

• “US Profits Just Peaked. That Usually Means Jobs Are at Risk,” per Bloomberg News

• “Wholesale prices rose 0.7% in January, more than expected, fueling inflation increase,” CNBC reports

• “The prices of these products have dropped, defying high inflation,” from ABC News

Related: Ad employment gained 1,400 jobs in January, rebounding from late 2022 losses

Don’t miss: Layoffs and budget cuts—tracking economic moves and news

GroupM’s updated carbon calculator to measure ad campaign carbon footprint more accurately

WPP’s GroupM “is upgrading its carbon calculator to measure the carbon footprint of client campaigns more accurately via a new partnership with Scope3, a company that offers supply chain emissions data,” Ad Age’s Aleda Stam reports.

The details: “The new Channel-Level Carbon Calculator integrates GroupM’s carbon measurement methodology, which the agency devised in July 2022 with input from a Big Four consulting firm to compare data across all media channels. The methodology builds on the guidance put forth by Ad Net Zero, which opened a U.S. chapter this month and aims to reduce advertising’s carbon impact. WPP and GroupM are active members of the organization.” 

Essential context: “The new methodology looks at emissions data resulting from the digital media supply chain or resulting from the production of a campaign’s creative from ‘cradle to gate,’ measuring an ad’s carbon footprint from inception until it’s seen by a consumer, according to Kieley Taylor, global head of partnerships and managing director at GroupM. 

Keep reading here.

Just briefly

• “Super Bowl measurement—how Nielsen, iSpot and Samba numbers diverge,” from Ad Age

• “New data shows majority of U.S. flights departed on time this fall,” from CBS News

• “Deputy attorney general warns against using TikTok, citing data privacy,” ABC News reports

• “Ad Age Small Agency Awards are open and include new categories,” from Ad Age

• “Expedia Group ad spending reaches record high, passing pre-pandemic level,” also from Ad Age

Previously: Amazon’s stunning ad spend, and Logan Paul’s Prime sports drink hype machine: Datacenter Weekly (Feb. 10, 2013 edition)

Ad Age Best Places to Work 2023

In his introduction to Ad Age’s Best Places to Work 2023 package, Ad Age Datacenter’s Bradley Johnson writes,

The best practices at the Best Places to Work turn out to be pretty straightforward:

Fair pay. Solid benefits.

Recruit and retain a diverse workforce. Keep staffing levels adequate so team members and teams can do their best work.

Provide good training and keep employees in the loop on how the business is doing. Tilt work-life balance a bit more toward life.

Easy to say—and hard to do. Ad Age Best Places to Work 2023 honors 50 companies for a job well done last year amid the challenges of a tight talent pool, uncertain economy and ongoing effects of the pandemic.

Dive into the full package here.

The newsletter is brought to you by Ad Age Datacenter, the industry’s most authoritative source of competitive intel and home to the Ad Age Leading National Advertisers, the Ad Age Agency Report: World’s Biggest Agency Companies and other exclusive data-driven reports. Access or subscribe to Ad Age Datacenter at AdAge.com/Datacenter.

Ad Age Datacenter is Kevin Brown, Bradley Johnson and Joy R. Lee.