The NFL is passing up what’s usually some free, easy publicity by canceling its annual press conference with the Super Bowl halftime act. “As it is about the music, the artists will let their show do the talking as they prepare to take the stage this Sunday,” the league said of Maroon 5.

While the band is busy preparing, it will also avoid questions about deciding to take the gig when Rihanna and Jay-Z reportedly refused it to support Colin Kaepernick against the NFL. If that's the motive, the band could have considered another out, firmly established as precedent by Prince in 2007: playing a surprise concert in a press room instead of taking questions.

Women may play a bigger part in Super Bowl ads this year, both in front of the camera and behind it.

The ads released through Tuesday featured seven women in starring or feature roles and 18 men, according to Ad Age's look at gender in this year's spots. That’s not close to the gender split in the U.S. (50.8% female in the last census) or the Super Bowl audience (47% female in 2019 ), but it’s better than the ads’ ratio last year: 13 women to about 50 men. Bumble and Michelob Ultra also made sure women comprised a large share of the teams making their ads.

Olay is also running its first Super Bowl ad, a relatively rare appearance by a brand aimed at women, and Toyota is featuring Antoinette “Toni” Harris, a college football player who wants to play in the NFL.

Apple is not renowned for taking input—“A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them” is a typical venerated Steve Jobs quote—but it may want to improve its system for taking incoming calls.

An Arizona teenager and his mother spent more than a week trying to warn Apple about the eavesdropping bug in FaceTime that banged a dent in the company’s efforts to brand itself as a privacy champion.

After calling, faxing and tweeting at Apple, Michele Thompson finally spoke with a support rep. “He said there’s really nothing I could do,” she said. “You have to register as a developer and submit it.” She did that too, but it’s still not clear what got Apple to finally take action.

Lara O’Reilly emails: A gaggle of influencers were all agog last week when Burger King started liking some of their tweets from 2009 and 2010. (Sample response, from vlogger Casey Neistat: “Why is Burger King liking my 8 year old tweets?”) It turned out it was step one in a social-media stunt promoting the comeback of its Funnel Cake Fries.

Apparently not amused about being “tricked” and "manipulated,” Mr. Neistat took to YouTube and asked Burger King to turn its earned media into something positive for one of the children's charities he raises money for. Then he said the video itself was obviously “just a joke” because he eats a burger out of a trash can in it—which is... exactly what I would say if I was looking to save face after overreacting to getting owned by a marketer.

Joke or not, it appears Burger King is game. “Slide into our DMs real quick,” the Burger King account tweeted to Mr. Neistat on Tuesday. 

Hyundai released its Super Bowl ad, which shows Jason Bateman operating an elevatoras it descends past floors of root canals and airplane middle seats to the standard car-buying experience. [CNET Roadshow]

Direct-to-consumer mattress marketer Casper has introduced Glow, an $89 nightlight to help adults sleep. [Fast Company]

Unilever wants brands, media sellers and tech platforms to cooperate on developing a way to measure audiences and the impact of ad campaigns across digital, TV and social media. [Campaign]

Nickelodeon is skipping its usual splashy upfront presentation to TV ad buyers this year in favor of meetings with marketers and agencies. [B&C] 

Jason White, global head of marketing for Apple’s Beats Electronics, was named global CMO at cannabis marketer Cura Partners. [Adweek] 

We bring you the most important (and intriguing) marketing news every day. Write me at nat.ives@wsj.com any time with feedback on the newsletter or comments on specific items. We want to hear from you.

And follow the CMO Today team on Twitter: @wsjCMO, @natives, @larakiara, @alexbruell.