Umm, a pandemic is not good for business. Many of the ads are bought by real businesses.
"Alphabet has been viewed as a key beneficiary of the **reopening trade**, given it stands to gain from a pick-up in travel-related searches and advertising on Google Search." (** emphasis mine **)
A lot of "real businesses" are online and saw a massive boom of people searching for, and buying products online. Additionally, a lot of marketing campaigns on TV/radio were stopped when the lock-downs started, and the budgets were shifted online. Same real businesses (think fast-fashion retailer), simply shifting more money to Google while they figured out if, and how to shoot new ads to replace those that depicted happy people at crowded parties.
"Alphabet has been viewed as a key beneficiary of the **reopening trade**, given it stands to gain from a pick-up in travel-related searches and advertising on Google Search." (** emphasis mine **)
Source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/alphabet-google-reports-q3-20...