It’s a tough time to be a record label. Consumers are not buying records at nearly the same scale they did ten, or even five years ago. Albums that used to sell 700k copies in their first week are now selling 200k. Albums that used to sell 200k are barely making a splash. With piracy ubiquitous amongst millennials and the proliferation of free releases, some have said that recorded music has simply lost its value. For others, however, there is another way to monetize aside from touring, it just lies outside of the music industry.

When IBM’s Watson computer debuted on Jeopardy last year, most people saw it as a very cool and impressive gimmick. Yes, the computer could beat brainy champion Ken Jennings at his own game, but to many this just seemed like another example of computers being smarter than humans ­– a familiar concept to anyone who uses a calculator. Yet, through the buzz surrounding the show and the advertising that followed it, Watson became a brand. And IBM is using that brand to extend their impressive technology to other areas.

If you saw Fast Company’s recent profile of the Top 10 Media Companies, ­you might have been shocked to find a brand at #2 on the list. Yet there is energy-drink titan Red Bull, behind only new media vanguard Twitter and ahead of old media master The New York Times. When Red Bull launched Red Bull Media House in 2007, they officially became a content publisher, not just a late-night enabler.

As you get ready for the Big Game, check out this article that @justinyte and I wrote for PolicyMic about some of the top Super Bowl advertising in history. Go Giants!

Check out the article here.

But look! They made a cute piece of content to demonstrate it.