Amazon's Super Bowl commercial might contain a clue about where HQ2 will be
- Amazon ran a commercial for its Alexa voice technology during the Super Bowl.
- In the ad, Alexa tries to give the weather for Austin, Texas, but then loses her voice.
- People are saying - seriously or not - that it might be a hint of where Amazon will ultimately place its HQ2 project.
Eagle-eyed viewers of the Super Bowl spotted something most people missed in Amazon's commercial for its Alexa voice assistant.
Before Alexa "loses her voice" in the commercial and is replaced by famous stand-ins, she tries to give the weather for Austin, Texas, to a woman brushing her teeth. Austin is one of the cities in the running for Amazon's HQ2 project, and it's considered one of the best candidates for the project by many analysts.
People both on Twitter and in local Texas publications are speculating it could be a hint that Amazon is going to eventually choose the city for its second headquarters.
In a tongue-in-cheek article, Texas Monthly speculated that the peacocks Anthony Hopkins is shown feeding in the commercial are a reference to the famous peacocks roaming Austin's Mayfield Park.
Amazon already has significant ties to Austin. It has an office of significant size in the city, and its grocery chain, Whole Foods, is headquartered there. If you ask Alexa what her favorite city in Texas is, she even outright states it's Austin, according to the Dallas Observer.
(If you ask Alexa her favorite city overall, however, she will say it's New York City - another of the 20 finalists.)
But could Amazon be leaving breadcrumbs in the form of a commercial watched by millions? We sincerely doubt it. There wouldn't be a whole lot of upside for the company to drop hints at this stage of the game. The company has reportedly even said in meetings with candidate city government officials that it wants the next phase of the search for HQ2 to play out a little more privately.
Still, Texas' state capital has a good shot at getting the new HQ. And it's worth considering any signals the company gives out in how it favors certain cities like Austin, seeing as there's $5 billion and 50,000 jobs on the line for the winner.
See Amazon's full Super Bowl commercial below.