Solution: Media Studio
Answer: PRODUCERS BROADCAST
Written by Jonathan
This puzzle presents a series of relatively detailed descriptions of some videos. Based on the descriptions, as well as some of the more obvious ones like Google and Pepsi, one might infer that these are referring to ads. More specifically, these are all Super Bowl ads. Start by identifying what these ads are, and complete the blanks as follows. The intermediate clue phrase spells AD METER RANK US TODAY.
| Missing word(s) | Index | Clue-phrase | Name of ad | Company | Ranking | Extraction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Warm Springs: Puppy Adoption | 2 | A | Puppy Love | Budweiser (2014) | 1 | P |
| Deli | 1 | D | The Neighborhood | Doordash (2021) | 11 | R |
| Manning | 1 | M | Touchdown Celebrations to Come | NFL (2018) | 2 | O |
| You didn't see nuthin | 10 | E | Dog Bribes Cat Owner | Doritos (2012) | 1 | D |
| Truck Bed Audio | 1 | T | A New Truck to Love | Honda (2016) | 7 | U |
| Super Bowl LII | 4 | E | Hope Detector | NFL (2018) | 9 | C |
| Manager’s Special | 7 | R | The Elevator | Hyundai (2019) | 4 | E |
| Mrs Long | 2 | R | Upstream | Toyota (2021) | 5 | R |
| Braadshaw Alert Expect Delays | 3 | A | Bradshaw Stain | Tide (2017) | 5 | S |
| Nothing Else is a Pepsi | 1 | N | Boy Gets Sucked Into a Pepsi Bottle | Pepsi (1995) | 1 | B |
| Sitka | 4 | K | Loretta | Google (2020) | 3 | R |
| ULTIMATE fishing site | 1 | U | Callling JohnMalkovich.com | Squarespace (2017) | 22 | O |
| Steven Tyler | 1 | S | Feel Something Again | Kia (2018) | 14 | A |
| Doritos | 5 | T | Dog's Revenge for Doritos | Doritos (2011) | 1 | D |
| Cool Ranch | 2 | O | The Cool Ranch | Doritos (2020) | 4 | C |
| Budweiser | 3 | D | Stand By You | Budweiser (2018) | 3 | A |
| We March With Selma | 4 | A | Democracy Dies in Darkness | Washington Post (2019) | 13 | S |
| Top Story: Developing Prius High Speed Chase | 8 | Y | The Longest Chase | Toyota (2016) | 10 | T |
Find out what these ads were ranked by USA TODAY's ad meter in their respective years, and index into the title of the ads to get the final answer, PRODUCERS BROADCAST.
Author's Notes
This puzzle probably had the most ideas that did not stick. Media Studio and the corresponding answer fit just about anything to do with media, and without spoiling too much in case we want to reuse some of our ideas in the future, we had 2 ideas involving reality TV shows, 2 more ideas involving other TV shows, 1 that had to do with Marvel movies, another pure movie puzzle and a songs based puzzle (rejected mainly because we already have quite a few puzzles involving songs). aki came up with the idea of Super Bowl ads as a different form of media that we could look into. We started writing this puzzle early, but it was one of our last 3 puzzles to come together. While writing this puzzle, I muted the video and tried my best to describe what I saw, so that it played sort of like a video charades. Ultimately, this puzzle was probably one of our less inspired ones, but I really enjoyed watching some of these ads, and hope solvers did too.
[aki's comments:] I really wanted to write something interesting to do with Super Bowl ads, especially given how much of a cultural phenomenon they have become. However, nothing really stuck out to me as being interesting enough such that it would not be an entirely research-based puzzle. I explored trying to use the Super Bowl game scores, home and away team names and halftime show performers and setlists but unfortunately was not very inspired by any of them. I'm not a big fan of research-y puzzle types, but Jon seemed okay with it, so I passed it on to him.