So it is logical to assume that during the most highly viewed TV broadcast of the year — the Super Bowl — that advertisers would make extraordinary efforts to target to women with advertising that is appealing, relevant, respectful and effective.
It is with regret that I have to tell you that this was not the case this year.
With the help of MJ Tocci, the co-founder and director of the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Negotiation Academy for Women, we developed a rubric to assess Sunday's ads. I asked about 25 female colleagues to view the commercials and to take into consideration the race, sexuality and culture being portrayed in the ad. I also asked them to assess the ad and decide if it was:
A waste of $4 million! Ad was not effective and certainly not respectful! Read more about the Super Bowl ads women loved and loved to hate on PBJ.com
More NBC10.com stories:
For more breaking business news go to PBJ.com
A Philadelphia doctor has been tapped to serve on the Food and Drug Administration’s advisory committee that deals with vaccines and related biological products.
Dr. Sarah Long from St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children is joining the committee comprised of 12 experts from the medical and biological sciences. The panel’s job is to review and evaluate data on the safety, effectiveness and proper use of vaccines.
The committee meets four times a year to review applications and make recommendations to the FDA regarding the licensing of new product candidates. The committee also comments on the FDA’s research programs concerning scientific backing for vaccine regulations. Read more about this story on PBJ.com
More NBC10.com stories:
Restoring housing and shoring up critical infrastructure will be the focus of how New Jersey spends its next round of Superstorm Sandy relief money.
Gov. Chris Christie's administration says its plans to spend $1.46 billion in federal storm recovery aid will be the subject of three public hearings next week.
It wants to use roughly half the money for housing programs, including grants for homeowners to rebuild and developers to put up new apartment buildings. The state received $1.83 billion in storm aid last year.
About a third of the money would go toward fixing vulnerabilities that Sandy pointed out in the state's transportation, energy, and water infrastructure systems.
Of the $735 million to be spent on housing assistance programs, $450 million would go to low or moderate-income families.
Get ready for round two. While Monday's snow is gone, another storm from the southwest is heading towards our region.
A winter storm watch has been issued for the North and West suburbs, Lehigh Valley and the Poconos from Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon. A mixture of snow, rain and ice is expected to strike with the potential for power outages and dangerous roads.
“This one will have more moisture than No. 1 and have a much greater contrast across the area,” said NBC10 First Alert Weather Chief Meteorologist Glenn “Hurricane” Schwartz.
The storm should move in around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, starting out as snow in the Lehigh Valley, Poconos, Upper Bucks and Upper Montgomery Counties and an icy mix in the Philly/I-95 corridor as well as Chester County. Only rain is expected in South Jersey and Delaware.
After that, the system will change to an icy mix in some areas and rain in others.
Storm Timeline
Tuesday 11 p.m. - 3 a.m.
Wednesday 3 a.m. - 6 a.m.
Wednesday 6 a.m. Noon
Wednesday Noon - 4 p.m.
“Snow will accumulate north and west before changing to freezing rain,” Glenn said. “The question is, how much of it will be snow and how much will be freezing rain? That will determine how severe the storm is. It does look like it will change over to rain in the Philadelphia area and point south and east by Wednesday morning.”
Snow to freezing rain will be the worst case scenario and likely cause downed trees, power outages and slippery roads.
“It’s a different type of storm but it has the potential for power outages north and west because of the additional snow and or ice on top of the snow that has already fallen today,” Glenn said. “It’s just weighing down on tree limbs which then break and take care of the power lines.”
Glenn also says the storm could cause both flooding and ice jam threats.
Estimated Snow Totals
Lehigh Valley/Poconos - 4 to 8 inches of snow, plus ice
Bucks, Montgomery, Chester counties - 3 to 6 inches of snow, plus ice
Philly/I-95 corridor - 1 to 3 inches of snow, plus ice
After storm number two moves out, a third system will move into the area Friday night into Saturday morning. Glenn says the track of that storm will be determined by what the second storm does.
While snow days may seem like a pleasant idea for students who get to stay at home for a day, for several local school districts, those days may add up to a longer school year.
The School District of Philadelphia (SDP), Lower Merion School District, and Central Bucks School District have all confirmed that at least one instructional day, and possibly as many as four instructional days may either be added to the end of the school year or deducted from scheduled days off for spring break or Easter.
Students attending schools in the Lower Merion School District are already due for a longer school year, according to spokesman Douglas Young. Young confirmed that the district has decided to add two days to the end of the school year, moving the last day of school from a Friday, June 13th to a Tuesday, June 17th, due to the snow.
Despite the schedule change, Young says this winter's weather is "active" but not unprecedented. According to Young, in 2012, Lower Merion students missed almost an entire week of school and were forced to attend make-up days in June and during the President's Day weekend due to Hurricane Sandy.
SDP spokesman Fernando Gallard said, when it comes to snow days, the district's primary goal is to meet the state's requirements.
The Pennsylvania Department of Education requires 180 days of instruction or 990 hours for 7th through 12th grades, and 900 hours for kindergarten though 6th grade. Gallard says the district can also ask for a waiver of the required days if the hours of instruction are met.
According to Gallard, the four snow days that the district has used this year -- three more than the one allotted snow day -- is above the norm compared to previous school years. But the district has not yet decided whether it will be having any make-up days.
"We do not know yet if there are going to be make-up days," Gallard said. "If there are days that must be added, we then look at shortening spring break or adding to the end of the school year."
Today also marked the fourth snow day for the Lower Moreland School District and the Central Bucks School District. To remedy the loss in instruction time, Central Bucks School District spokesman Melanie Sullivan says district officials have already taken away Easter Monday and extended the school year from June 12th to June 13th.
While Sullivan said it is, "highly irregular to have this many snow days," in one school year, she says Central Bucks purposely schedules 184 days of instruction -- four days above the state's minimum -- to prevent having to add days to the end of the school year.
Central Bucks has not decided how to make up the remaining missed days.
Lower Moreland School District officials say, if there are any more snow days, the school year calendar will be reviewed and extended by its board directors.
Officials are investigating the cause of a fire that destroyed a barn in Montgomery County.
The two-alarm blaze broke out at a barn on the 300 block of Landis Road around 7:30 p.m. Skyforce10 was over the scene as flames broke through the heavy smoke on the roof.
No one was hurt during the blaze but officials say the barn was completely destroyed.
The barn was used to store several cars and no animals lived inside.
Stay with NBC10.com for more details on this developing story.
Also on NBC10.com:
Despite the fact that the region has been pummeled with snow storm after snow storm this winter, Manayunk native and business owner Derek Davis says that, as long as the customers continue coming in, his restaurant will be open for business. In fact, he says he welcomes snow days like today because they make his clients more cheerful.
"People who are out and about today are in a good mood because they don't have to work today," Davis said. "I learned a long time ago not to get upset over things I can't change."
Derek's Restaurant is located on Main Street in the heart of the Manayunk district.
One thing that David can't change is the fact that many of Manayunk's roads are hilly and often difficult for city workers to navigate plows through when it snows. Though he's very optimistic about his restaurant's ability to maintain patrons through the inclement weather, Davis admitted that the snow has had some effect on business.
"Business was down two percent over last year in January, and that's definitely due to the snow," he said.
Brendan McGrew owns Bourbon Blue, an American and New Orleans-inspired restaurant in the Manayunk district. He says he's seen a definite decrease in business this winter.
"We've seen a decrease in business by about 30- to 40-percent on snow days. I think because Manayunk is such an older town, it's a lot harder for plows to get up and down those side streets and that's where a lot of people look to park if they go out," McGrew said.
Both Davis and McGrew say they've been going the extra mile to entice customers to come in when it snows. Davis said special offers like $5 burgers, margaritas and mojitos reeled in as many as 25 customers during lunch hour on Monday, despite the foot of snow that fell in some areas, creating a messy commute.
McGrew said his employees hit social media a little harder on snow days by sending messages online -- or even sending phone text messages to regular customers -- to make sure they know that the restaurant is still open.
As the region braces for yet another winter storm on Tuesday night, Davis says snow days are all a part of the game.
"I've been here for 23 years, so I know, it all averages out. Of course, your business is gonna be off when the weather is crappy, but we get a lot more good weather days in a year than we get bad weather days," Davis said.
"In the 23 years I've been closed, weather related maybe two or three times, but not this year. People can get here, its a very walkable neighborhood. People expect you to be there for them."
McGrew said he hopes any future snow storms come early in the week, and not on Saturday, the restaurant's busiest day of the week. That aside, McGrew says he's just looking forward to warmer days in spring.
"Spring is an opening of flood gates. People who have been cramped in all winter, they want to get out," he said. "I fully believe that come spring it will fully pay us back."
Thousands of customers across the region are still in the dark after heavy, wet snow weighed down on tree limbs and snapped power lines on Monday.
A spokesperson for PECO Energy, which has 1.6 million customers in the Philadelphia-area, says snapped power lines are the main cause of outages for their customers.
PECO says 3700 customers are still without power in Montgomery County, down from 12,000 at the height of the storm. There are also around 400 PECO customers without power in Delaware County.
A transformer fire near the intersection of Penn Oak Road and Church Road in Springfield Township, Pa. helped knock out power for additional customers in Montgomery County, emergency management officials tell NBC10.
Dov and Aaron Wiener say they were without power in their home on Bryant Lane in Abington for five hours. As soon as the lights turned back on, a neighbor's tree crashed into their front yard, toppled onto their car and knocked out power to several families on the street.
"There was a major explosion," said Dov. "We knew something was bad."
"It was like a bomb went off," Aaron said. "You could hear a tree falling."
The couple is dealing with the cold by bundling up in their living room next to a gas-powered fireplace, their only source of heat.
"I'm trying to keep warm," Aaron said. "Keep the doors closed and everything buttoned up. Keep as much warmth as I can in the house."
PECO reported technical issues with its power outage hotline for most of the morning and early afternoon leaving some customers unable to report blackouts. Officials say they have since gotten the hotline back online and that customers can always report outages on their website.
PPL Power in the Lehigh Valley said several hundred customers in Berks, Lehigh and Northampton Counties lost power.
In New Jersey, PSE&G earlier reported about 3,000 of their 2.2 million customers were without power. As of 9:45 p.m. however, only about 725 customers were in the dark. Crews continue to work throughout the night to restore service.
Delmarva Power, servicing customers in Delaware and Maryland, reported just a handful of outages, as well.
As power crews across the region work to restore service to customers, another storm that could cause even more power outages, continues to move towards the region.
We received many photos of snowmen from NBC10 viewers throughout the day. But none quite as massive as the one we got from Jess Gorczycki, of the Pennfield section of Havertown.
“The neighborhood kids and families asked me to send this of the snow day,” Gorczycki wrote to us. “He’s really 10 feet tall!”
NBC10 reached out to her to learn more about what went into building the huge snowman. It turns out it was a real community effort.
“All the men in the neighborhood, all the dads, got together and lifted all the pieces,” Gorczycki said. “The kids made all the body parts.”
Gorczycki did her part to help, lending the big fella her scarf.
“That’s actually a scarf I brought back from Japan,” she said.
Gorczycki was sure to name all the kids who helped build it. Her own daughter, Chloe Tobin, Sean Brown, Erin, Jack and Paige Stadnicki, John Meyer, the Ko siblings, the Penza siblings and the Santoro brothers.
“It only took them about an hour and a half,” Gorczycki said. “They had made another one, a seven-footer earlier. So this was the icing on the cake.”
Gorczycki also gave credit to the neighborhood dads who did all the heavy lifting.
“Kudos to the neighborhood dads,” she said. “It just goes to show you the importance of a father.”
According to Gorczycki, the snowman is just another example of how well the tightknit community works together.
“It’s a nice little neighborhood,” she said. “Everyone gets along and works together. We shovel each other’s driveways, watch each other’s kinds and then they just built this giant snowman.”
