Welcome to Ad Age Datacenter Weekly, our data-obsessed newsletter for marketing and media professionals.
Crypto brands got the biggest Super Bowl social audience boost: Datacenter Weekly
Super Bowl social boost for cryptocurrency brands
According to social media analytics firm ListenFirst, which monitored the change in Super Bowl advertisers’ followers and fans in the immediate aftermath of the Big Game (see below for methodology), cryptocurrency brands FTX, Crypto.com and Coinbase saw the biggest gains across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Rounding out the list of the top 10 gainers: halftime show sponsor Pepsi, Expedia, T-Mobile, Booking.com, Sam’s Club, Amazon and Doritos.

Methodology: ListenFirst tracked the social media accounts of consumer brands that ran commercials between the coin toss and the final whistle of Super Bowl LVI (network and entertainment promos were excluded, as well as local spots). The net gain in social followers and fans was calculated from a pre-game baseline to the final number as of the end of the day (ET) on Monday.
See also: “How Super Bowl advertisers’ e-commerce traffic was intercepted by rivals,” from Ad Age’s Jack Neff.
Plus: “The Oscars are using Twitter to help boost fan engagement,” from Ad Age’s Parker Herren.
Google updates its privacy plans
“Google’s privacy plans will soon encompass Android, as the search giant will take many of the same steps as Apple to limit consumer tracking on mobile devices,” Ad Age’s Garett Sloane reports.
Essential context: “On Wednesday, Google updated what it calls Privacy Sandbox, an initiative launched last year to apply stricter data controls to the internet. Privacy Sandbox focused on Chrome web browsers first, but now is coming to Android. ... Google said it would ‘limit’ data-sharing through the advertising ID, a unique code for each device used to target and measure ads.”
Back to work
“Fewer people say they are out of work for reasons having to do with Covid-19,” The Wall Street Journal’s David Harrison reports, “a sign that the labor market impact of the Omicron variant of the virus could be receding.”
Essential context: “New Census Bureau data released Wednesday show that the number of people who were out of work because they were sick or caring for someone who was sick fell to 7.8 million in late January and early February, down from almost 8.8 million in early January.”
Macroeconomic news and data in a nutshell
• “The Fed is setting out to kill inflation. Brace for collateral damage,” from Politico.
• “Retail sales surge 3.8% in January, much more than expected amid inflation rise,” CNBC reports.
• “U.S. labor market still tightening; freezing temperatures chill homebuilding,” Reuters reports.
• “U.S. Jobless Claims Rise, Concentrated in a Few States,” per Bloomberg News.
Previously: “U.S. advertising employment fell in January,” from Ad Age Datacenter.
IBM’s ‘data fabric’
IBM says, “Let’s create data fabric instead of data silos” in a new TV commercial. See it in the latest edition of Ad Age’s Hot Spots here.
Ad Age Agency Report 2022: Call for entries
The upcoming Ad Age Agency Report 2022 will include the industry’s definitive ranking of agencies, agency networks and agency companies. Make sure your agency is included by completing Ad Age Datacenter’s questionnaire, available at AdAge.com/arq.
Watch for it: Ad Age’s 78th annual Agency Report comes out online and in print on April 25. See last year’s report here.
Just briefly
• “Walmart hauls in $2.1 billion from advertising while launching ad network,” Ad Age reports.
• “How Google is allowing publishers to keep their cookies,” also from Ad Age.
• “How Netflix built its real-time data infrastructure,” from VentureBeat.
• “NIH [National Institutes of Health] issues a seismic mandate: share data publicly,” per Nature.
• “‘You are seen’: A record 7.1% of US adults now identify as LGBTQ, new poll shows,” from USA Today.
• “The widening political chasm is revealed in real estate data,” per NPR.
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 Catherine Wolf.
This week’s newsletter was compiled and written by Simon Dumenco.