More states grant in-state tuition to immigrants

WASHINGTON — Four states passed statutes last year that will allow students who came to the U.S. without legal permission as minors to pay in-state college tuition.

The National Conference of State Legislatures says 15 states now have in-state tuition statutes.

That's energized supporters of immigrants' rights, and they're next planning to step up lobbying efforts to make those students eligible for state financial aid programs.

University boards in Hawaii, Michigan and Rhode Island have granted these students in-state tuition. To qualify, high school graduates typically must meet requirements such as living in a state for a certain number of years.

Critics say helping these students encourages unlawful behavior and means they potentially are taking someone else's seat at taxpayers' expense.

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Big-firm woes send stocks into dive

Stocks tumbled yesterday after disappointing quarterly results from big-name companies including Amazon.com and ongoing turmoil in overseas markets, capping the toughest January for the U.S. stock market in four years.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 149.76 points, or 0.9 percent, to close at 15,698.85, while the Nasdaq fell 19.25 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,103.88, and the Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 11.60 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,782.59.

Amazon.com dropped $44.32, or 11 percent, to $358.69, below what Wall Street was anticipating. Investors also were spooked by weaker than expected European inflation data showing that the recovery is still shaky there.

But perhaps the biggest problem was the tumult in emerging markets — such as Turkey, Argentina and India — which have been reacting to local issues as well as the Federal Reserve's announcement this week that it was trimming another $10 billion from its bond-buying program, said Paul Edelstein, director of financial economics at IHS Global Insight in Lexington.

"People who are concerned about risks are moving money out of stocks and into bonds," Edelstein said. "But I don't expect this to metastasize into further crisis."

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Mayor Marty Walsh: I won’t bust Boston budget

Mayor Martin J. Walsh told business leaders yesterday that he wouldn't use rainy-day funds to balance the Hub's budget or use one-time revenues for ongoing expenses — despite a looming budget shortfall — as he outlined his agenda for economic development in the city.

"I will present a balanced budget to the City Council that advances my priorities and also continues to serve our residents here in the city of Boston," he said yesterday at the New England Council breakfast. "We're at the early stages of a monthslong budget process and over the next three months, I'll be working with every city department to implement new ideas that will drive efficiencies ... I don't believe we should use reserve funds to balance the budget. I don't want to use one-time revenues for ongoing expenses."

The city has about
$200 million in cash reserves, but is also facing a $30 million budget gap that is expected to grow thanks to an arbitrator's award of a 25.4 percent pay increase to city patrolmen. All departments except the schools have been asked to trim their budgets 1 percent.

During his talk at the Boston Harbor Hotel, Walsh said a key to putting the city on firm financial footing is enticing businesses to open in Boston and the region.

"It's not Boston versus Cambridge versus Somerville. I'm going to work on what we can do in this region. I'm going to work to attract businesses to the city of Boston like medical device manufacturing firms, in the city and other neighborhoods," he said. "And I'm going to work with our delegation and all of you to secure important federal research dollars."

Walsh said while there are billions of dollars in development underway in the city, more can be done to encourage growth.

"Currently we have
$4.8 billion in projects underway in the city of Boston," he said. "Which is wonderful. We have another 
$2.2 billion under review."

Walsh said he expects to appoint a search committee to find a new school superintendent next week.

"We have the greatest colleges and universities, you hear that all the time," Walsh said. "Now, we need to make sure our young people have the same opportunities in our schools in Boston, in our grammar schools, in our middle schools, and in our high schools ... We need to make sure when these people go into our high schools that we're preparing them for college or to go on to a trade. If we do that, we will see an impact on the street."

The mayor also spoke about the nine homicides so far this year in Boston and made a pitch to the business leaders to support the city's summer jobs program for young people.

"We need to make sure we give young people opportunity so that they are not being arrested and put into jail," he said. "We have to make sure they have a pathway to a career so that some day they can be sitting in this room."

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Toney chains end health coverage

Add Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue to the list of retailers ending health insurance for part-timers in response to new Obamacare regulations.

The chains decided to no longer offer coverage to associates who average less than 30 hours of work per week, spokeswoman Tiffany Bourre confirmed.

"As are all U.S. employers, we are reviewing our benefits programs as they relate to the recent health care reform," she said. "Since the coverage provided through federal and state exchanges provides the best avenue for our part-time associates … we will no longer offer medical coverage to this group."

The change took effect Jan. 1 for Saks and starts March 1 for Lord & Taylor. It will affect less than 1 percent of 44,000 associates, Bourre said.

Citing health care reform, discount chain Target Corp. last week also said it would stop health insurance for its part-timers.

"It's always disappointing if a company puts their bottom line ahead of employees' welfare," said Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, executive director of Boston's Health Care for All. "It adds to the insecurity of their employees and makes them less attractive workplaces."

Macy's and Bloomingdale's also dropped their "limited" plan for part-timers on July 1 because it wouldn't have met 
Affordable Care Act requirements, and a more premium plan would have been cost-prohibitive for workers, spokesman Jim Sluzewski said.

"We offered part-time associates access to a temporary plan to get them through until Dec. 31, 2013 — when the Affordable Care Act took effect," he said.

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Converted ‘Cottage’ charms

This unique, high-end brick home is carved out of a former psychiatric 
patient residence on former McLean Hospital property in Belmont.

Part of the 120-unit Woodlands at Belmont Hill, this home at 9 Meadows Lane is one of several historic hospital structures being con­verted to residential use, along with mostly new construction attached townhouses surrounded by 100 acres of conservation land.

This 1912 building, known as South Cottage, works well as a home renovation, with two good-size levels that hold formal living and dining rooms, a large family room and spacious kitchen as well as three bedrooms. The only new addition is an attached two-car garage.

And while this property is a 2,575-square-foot single family, it is considered a condominium along with 60 others in the nearly complete second phase of this project. South Cottage, which also has a large private deck and brick paver courtyards 
enclosed by brick walls, is on the market for $1,545,000.

The building has been gut-rehabbed, with all new 9-over-9 windows, new systems and a restored Vermont slate hip roof. All brick, including quoins along the sides, has been repointed and brackets in the roof overhang have been restored.

The entryway to the home has a replica of the original vestibule, this one with radiant-heated slate floors and a beadboard ceiling. It leads into a foyer with dark-stained maple floors, which cover the entire first level.

Off to the left is a recessed-lit living room with two sets of three bay windows, 14-foot ceilings and a gas fireplace with a carved wooden mantel inserted into the house's original chimney. To the right, through a glass door is a library/study with custom crown molding.

Straight ahead is a recessed-lit dining room with a contemporary hanging fixture. This room has a butler's pantry/wet bar with a gray marble counter, frosted cabinets, a sink and Sub Zero wine cooler. At the end of this room are tall windows and a glass door out onto a large wood deck on top of a two-car garage.

A large recessed-lit kitchen is connected to the dining room with tall white painted and frosted glass underlit cabinets, Absolute black granite counters and a tiled backsplash. There's a gray marble-topped island with pendant lights. High-end stainless-steel appliances include a Wolf professional gas stove with a Best range hood and a Wolf convection oven. There's also a Sub Zero refrigerator and Asko dishwasher. The far end of the kitchen has a breakfast nook that overlooks one of the paver patios enclosed by a brick wall.

A half bath behind the kitchen has a floating quartz vanity, a marble accent wall and brushed bronze fixtures. Adjacent is a laundry closet with a washer/dryer hookup.

The master bedroom suite off the dining room features a maple-floored bedroom with a tray ceiling and a walk-in closet with a built-in wardrobe system. The en-suite master bathroom has porcelain floors and tiled shower with a glass door. There's a double vanity with a stone countertop, Robern medicine cabinets, brushed bronze fixtures and a large linen closet.

The lower level, reached by stairs from the dining room, has a stone-floored mud room that leads out to an attached cedar-shingled two-car garage with a custom shelving system.

There's a large carpeted family room on this level as well as two carpeted guest bedrooms with closet built-ins. There's also a full bathroom here with a white marble floor, a stone-topped vanity and a one-piece Fiberglas tub and shower.

The home has two-zone gas-fired heating and central air-conditioning systems.

Broker: Melissa Flamburis of Woodlands sales office at 617-784-6072

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Yahoo won’t say how many emails hacked

A day after Yahoo Inc. said it recently identified a "coordinated effort" to gain unauthorized access to its Yahoo Mail accounts, the nation's second largest email service declined to say how many accounts were affected or how it discovered the problem.

"Because the investigation is ongoing and we are working closely with federal law enforcement, we are not able to share any additional information beyond what we've said publicly," spokeswoman Kate Wesson said yesterday.

The list of email usernames and passwords used to execute the attack likely was collected from a third-party database that was compromised, and malicious software used the list to access Yahoo accounts, the company said in a security update on its blog.

"The information sought in the attack seems to be names and email addresses from the affected accounts' most recent sent emails," Yahoo said in the blog.

That could mean hackers were looking for more email addresses to send spam or scam messages. By grabbing real names from those sent folders, hackers could try to make bogus messages appear more legitimate to recipients.

"It's much more likely that I'd click on something from you if we email all the time," said Richard Mogull, CEO of Securois, a security research and advisory firm.

Yahoo said it took immediate action to protect affected email users, prompting them to reset account passwords.

The breach was the second unsettling episode for Yahoo email users in two months. In December, CEO Marissa Mayer apologized for a major hardware outage that interrupted usage for 
1 percent of its accounts.

Herald wire services were used for this report.

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Stock investors hit from all sides in January

NEW YORK — Stock investors were hit from all sides in January.

Concerns about the global economy and U.S. company earnings, as well as turmoil in emerging markets, led the Dow Jones industrial average to its worst start since 2009. However, many investors remain hopeful that the problems will not spill over into the rest of 2014.

They even see the downturn as healthy, given the U.S. market's rapid rise last year.

The Dow slid 5.3 percent in January while the Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3.6 percent and the Nasdaq composite declined 1.7 percent.

Investors entered the year with some degree of skepticism and nervousness. The stock market went basically straight up in 2013. The S&P 500 index ended 2013 with a gain of nearly 30 percent, its best year since 1997.

"No amount of negative news could derail the market last year," said Jonathan Corpina, a floor trader at the New York Stock Exchange with Meridian Equity Partners.

But no stock market can go straight up forever.

Many investors expected 2014 to be a more muddled and volatile year for the market. Market strategists late last year were looking for the S&P 500 index to notch a modest gain of 4 percent to 6 percent, ending in the range of 1,850 to 1,900.

Investors were also looking for more pullbacks this year and possibly a correction, the technical term for when a stock market index like the S&P 500 falls 10 percent or more. Three months ago, analysts at Goldman Sachs said there was roughly a 60 percent chance that a correction would happen this year.

"People did look at these stock market valuations at the beginning of the year with a degree of nervousness," said David Kelly, chief market strategist with J.P. Morgan Funds. "A correction would probably be healthy for the market."

But many investors were surprised by January's turbulence. With one exception, the Dow had triple-digit moves every trading day in January.

Still, with the broader S&P 500 index down just 3.6 percent from its January 15 peak, the downturn is hardly severe.

"There's been some negative news out there — the economic data, corporate earnings and what's now going on in emerging markets — but I'm not convinced the headlines are bad enough to be a catalyst to push us into a correction," Corpina said.

Investors point to the December jobs report, released on Jan. 10, as the event that started the troubles. The U.S. government said employers created only 74,000 jobs in December, the worst month for job creation in since 2011 and far below expectations.

Up until then, weeks of data showed the U.S. economic recovery was accelerating. U.S. companies were selling record levels of goods overseas; layoffs had dwindled; and the Federal Reserve was pulling back on its economic stimulus program, citing an improving economy.

Many investors called the December jobs report as a statistical fluke. But the report has weighed on stocks all month, investors say.

"It set a negative tone for the market," Kelly said.

Other economic reports also painted a picture of U.S. economic growth possibly flattening out instead of accelerating.

Investors combined these economic worries with mixed signals from U.S. companies.

Wall Street is in the middle of earnings season, when the country's major corporations report results for the final three months of the year. Half of the members of the S&P 500 have reported, and the results have been mixed. While fourth-quarter corporate earnings are up a respectable 7.9 percent from a year earlier, companies have been cutting their full-year outlooks and reporting weaker sales, according to data provider FactSet.

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, said Friday that earnings may come in at the low end or below its prior forecasts. It also expects sales at stores open at least a year to be flat. The company previously forecast that sales would be modestly higher.

Wal-Mart's forecast echo the comments from Macy's, Target, Best Buy and other retailers.

Of the companies who have reported so far, 44 companies have cut their full-year profit outlooks while 10 have increased their outlooks, according to data from FactSet.

Adding to concerns about the U.S. economy and earnings were problems in overseas markets.

The bad news started with China. A recent report showed manufacturing activity in the world's second-largest economy unexpectedly contracted in January. The report added to other recent signs that the Chinese economy was slowing down after years of massive growth.

Then came currency troubles in smaller emerging markets, particularly Turkey, South Africa and Argentina.

All three saw their currencies fall sharply against the dollar, as investors began to pull out of emerging markets and return their money to less-risky parts of the globe.

"These governments were financing themselves with (foreign investor money), and now that these investors are looking to go home, there's no source of money to replace them," said Krishna Memani, chief investment officer at Oppenheimer Funds.

On Friday, the U.S. stock market closed out January on another down note. The Dow fell 149.76 points, or 0.9 percent, to 15,698.85. The S&P 500 dropped 11.60 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,782.59 and the Nasdaq lost 19.25 points, or 0.5 percent, to 4,103.88.

Investors shouldn't panic yet, money managers say.

They will get the January jobs report next week. Also, another 93 members of the S&P 500 are scheduled to report earnings.

"A 5 percent decline in equities is not an earthshattering event by any measure, particularly after last year," Memani said. "It's still way too early to give up on equities."

___

AP Business Writer Alex Veiga contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

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Mass. women promote Cape Ann gourmet sea salt

GLOUCESTER, Mass. — The location of the harvest is a secret because ... well, because the Salt Ladies want to keep it that way. And it does not do to cross the Salt Ladies.

The unseasonably balmy 40-degree temperatures of Martin Luther King Jr. Day have drawn Alison Darnell and Heather Ahearn — along with their 28 large plastic buckets — to this small public beach that, for reasons of competitive advantage, shall remain nameless.

Even on holidays, the salt show must go on.

Waterproofed from their feet up and double-gloved, the two women spend the next hour lugging the empty buckets into the sea and returning to terra firma with 5 gallons of pristine Cape Ann seawater in each — the very nectar that begins the process to produce mounds of pure gourmet sea salt for discerning gourmands and seat-of-the-pants cooks alike.

Ahearn and Darnell are founders, senior executives, cooks and chief seawater Sherpas for Atlantic Saltworks, a fledgling North Shore-based company that produces gourmet sea salt for sale on the company's website and, up to this point, at a limited number of retail locations, such as The Cave in Gloucester.

They started the company in August. Basically, at least for now, it is run out of their respective homes — Salem for Ahearn and Wakefield for Darnell.

When it's time to cook the salt from the seawater, operations shift to the shared commercial kitchen the company leases in Amesbury, where the seawater is boiled to produce the briny flake finishing sea salt that is the rage in the cooking world. The yield is about 3 ounces per gallon of water.

"It just tastes better," Darnell said. "We don't use anti-caking agents like a big company might use, and we don't take anything from the salt, and we don't add anything to it."

Once collected, the seawater is allowed to settle. Then it is filtered to remove organic impurities and boiled to produce the salt.

The whole enterprise started with the boiling of 1 gallon of seawater out of Salem Harbor on Ahearn's kitchen stove, just to see if they could do it.

"We actually made salt, and we were hooked," Darnell said. "But it's one thing to boil down a gallon of water on your stove to produce salt and another to consistently produce the finest flake."

The women, both 39, hold MBAs from Babson College and day jobs in traditional businesses. But that 1 gallon of water turned their hearts to salt.

The idea in hand, they embarked on their research.

They investigated the history of salt and identified those companies — such as Maldon Salt Co., in Essex, England — regarded as the producers of the finest flake and finishing salt. They checked with local and state regulatory about the propriety of freely harvesting seawater from public areas and with health agencies for the applicable standards.

Then they hit the road, traveling the North Shore coastline from Newburyport to Salem, sampling and testing the seawater, searching for the right salinity and the highest purity. That search ultimately led them to Cape Ann, where they found what they considered the very best water for what they believe is the among the best sea salts anyone is making.

"We narrowed it down to a couple places we liked because of the taste of the salt and because they just felt like it was the right places to be," Ahearn said.

They even performed a blind taste-test of salts made from seawater from varying spots.

"It was very slight, but you could tell the difference ,and we knew that one was slightly better than the other," Darnell said. "It's amazing what we've learned in a short time. Salt is all we talk about. My husband is so bored with it."

Though they started the company in August, Darnell said they didn't even attempt their first sale until November. Much of the work now involves marketing the product and getting the word out to chefs and everyday cooks, making them aware of the daily uses for what often is regarded as a somewhat precious spice.

"We don't want folks to think of it as so super-special that you're only going to take it out and use it on special occasions," Darnell said.

They've also expanded their product line to include salt blends and are looking at the possibility of expanding into brines or spice rubs.

The marketing is a bit of a small-ball effort, involving word-of-mouth and local food shows. Joey Ciaramitaro gave them a shout-out on the highly popular "GoodMorningGloucester" blog. They also have been invited to showcase their salt at some of the region's most prestigious food shows, such as Eat Boutique magazine's Boston Holiday Market during the Christmas season, as well as the upcoming SoWash open market in Boston.

The goal for Atlantic Saltworks is to centralize cooking and packaging operations in one exclusive location, with Gloucester as the women's primary choice.

"I have to say we've felt extremely welcome in Gloucester," Ahearn said.

In crafting their own Gloucester connection, according to Justin Demetri — a Cape Ann historian with the Essex Shipbuilding Museum — the Salt Ladies will add to a long historical line of Gloucester's connection with salt.

"Gloucester, at the turn of the (19th) century, was the world's largest importer of salt," Demetri wrote in response to an email request. "It was the largest fishing fleet in the Western Hemisphere and one of the last great salt fish ports.

The death knell for the industry, however, came with the establishment of fresh fish markets in Boston and elsewhere around 1850.

"As people's tastes changed, salt fish's market share would slowly decrease," Demerit said. "By the arrival of flash freezing in the 1920s, Gloucester's salt fishing fleet was on its last legs."

Now, almost 100 years later, Gloucester's role in the salt business may be reawakening — thanks to the Salt Ladies.

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Obama running out of reasons to reject Keystone XL

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is running out of reasons to say no to Keystone XL, the proposed oil pipeline that's long been looming over his environmental legacy.

Five years after the pipeline's backers first asked the Obama administration for approval, the project remains in limbo, stuck in a complex regulatory process that has enabled Obama to put off what will inevitably be a politically explosive decision. But the release Friday of a long-awaited government report removes a major excuse for delay, ramping up pressure on the president to make a call.

The State Department's report raised no significant environmental objections to the pipeline, marking a victory for proponents, who argue the project will create jobs and strengthen America's energy security.

Environmentalists disagree and insist approval would fly in the face of Obama's vaunted promise to fight climate change, even as the report gives him political cover to approve it. They argue the report, which provides a detailed assessment of tar sands emissions, offers Obama more than enough justification to oppose the pipeline.

Obama is not tipping his hand. But the White House pushed back on the notion that the pipeline is now headed for speedy approval. Only after various U.S. agencies and the public have a chance to weigh the report and other data will a decision be made, said White House spokesman Matt Lehrich.

"The president has clearly stated that the project will be in the national interest only if it does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution," Lehrich said, echoing a declaration Obama made in a speech laying out his climate change plan.

A final decision isn't expected until this summer, at the earliest, meaning the verdict could potentially come in the run-up to November's midterm elections, in which energy issues are likely to be a factor in some key races. The decision might also coincide with the Obama administration's release of new emissions rules for existing power plants that are also politically contentious.

Because Keystone has become a proxy for the broader battle over energy vs. environment, Obama's decision will have an outsized impact on his environmental legacy. The issue has taken on a life of its own, trailing Obama seemingly wherever he goes.

Protesters, one who dresses as a polar bear, show up regularly outside the White House and at Obama events across the country to demonstrate against it. Both sides have run television ads urging Obama to take their side on the pipeline, which would carry oil from tar sands in western Canada 1,179 miles to a hub in Nebraska, where it would connect with existing pipelines to carry more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil a day to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast.

"Sometimes you don't get to choose the symbol of an issue — they get chosen for you, and there's no better example of that than Keystone," said Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress and a Keystone opponent. "His decision on this issue will symbolize his record on climate and energy for people on both sides of the debate."

If Obama gives Keystone the green light, environmental groups that are already upset with him for promoting domestic oil and gas drilling are sure to pile on. Moreover, it's unlikely to win him any accolades from Republicans. Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said rather than give Obama credit for finally making the decision they wanted, Republicans will criticize him for taking so long.

Ironically for Obama, who has been seeking out opportunities to act unilaterally in the face of congressional gridlock, this is one decision the president may wish weren't up to him. Republicans seized on Obama's vow to use his "pen and phone" to take executive action this year as they urged him Friday to sign the pipeline's permit.

"Please pick up that pen you've been talking so much about and make this happen," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

The White House has sought to dodge questions publicly about the pipeline by arguing the review process is housed at the State Department, which has jurisdiction because the pipeline would cross a U.S. border. But privately, administration officials concede that Obama will decide an issue of this magnitude.

Obama doesn't just face domestic pressure on the issue — Canada has been angered at the long delays of the project it needs to export its growing oil sands production. Obama meets with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a trilateral summit in Mexico in a few weeks.

Obama blocked the Keystone XL pipeline in January 2012, saying he did not have enough time for a fair review before a looming deadline forced on him by congressional Republicans. That delayed the choice for him until after his re-election.

Now that the review is complete, other government agencies have 90 days to comment. Then Secretary of State John Kerry makes a recommendation to Obama on whether the project is in the national interest, taking into account Obama's pledge that the effect on greenhouse gas emissions will be part of that equation.

The State Department report Friday said Keystone is unlikely to significantly impact oil sands extraction or the demand for heavy crude oil at U.S. refineries. Keystone opponents called the report flawed and argued it ignored evidence.

___

Associated Press writer Matthew Daly contributed to this report.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

Follow Josh Lederman at https://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

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Music a big focus in Super Bowl ads

NEW YORK — Music is taking center stage at the Super Bowl — and not just during the halftime show.

Bank of America will have rock band U2 sing a new song during a commercial break. Pop band OneRepublic jams in a Bud Light ad. And the legendary Bob Dylan's 1966 hit "I Want You" will appear in a Chobani yogurt spot.

The focus on music comes as many advertisers look for ways to engage the 108 million viewers who are expected to tune in during the Super Bowl. With each 30-second spot costing an estimated $4 million, many companies are turning away from controversial or "gross" spots that might offend. By focusing on music, experts say advertisers will be able to reach a wide swath of people.

"Advertisers are following the lead of what really spreads culturally," said David Berkowitz, chief marketing officer of Publicis' digital ad agency MRY. "The conversation around the Grammys and the VMAs keeps getting bigger. If you look at the most followed celebrities on places like Twitter its people like Katy Perry, Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga."

— U2 SINGING: The biggest music stunt of the night includes U2 singing a new single, "Invisible," during the break between the first and second quarters for Bank of America. The bank is promoting its partnership with AIDS nonprofit (RED). The song will be a free download on iTunes during the game and for the following 24 hours and Bank of America will donate $1 each time it is downloaded to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS.

— BOB DYLAN: Folk singer Bob Dylan lends a track to a Chobani ad running in the third-quarter that shows a bear ransacking a small-town store until he finds the yogurt. There are reports that Dylan also will be making an appearance in a Chrysler ad.

— ONEREPUBLIC: Bud Light also will lean heavily on music. One ad will debut a new song by DJ and producer Afrojack, "Ten Feet Tall," that will be available for a free download after the commercial. Another ad shows a man being led on a spontaneous adventure after he accepts a Bud Light from a stranger and ends with the man on stage during a concert with the pop band OneRepublic.

— ELLEN DEGENERES: Beats Music makes its Super Bowl debut with an ad starring comedian Ellen Degeneres doing her take on the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears: she dances to different people's playlists until she finds one just right for her party.

Whether the focus on music will help brands stand out remains to be seen, but Tim Calkins, marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Business in Northwestern, said the key will be connecting music back to the brand.

"The risk with music is you don't want the song to overshadow the brand," he says. "As advertisers embrace music, you've got to make sure the brand doesn't get lost."

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