Key Takeaways
- Budweiser’s Clydesdale-featuring Super Bowl ad gave the brand a win after recent marketing controversies.
- With nearly 124 million viewers, the championship game is also a chance for brands to get their products before a big audience.
- Many commercials showcased well-known food and beverages, but others touted more obscure items, such as car mats.
Bud’s ad team is feeling some buzz.
After recent marketing controversies, beer manufacturer Anheuser-Busch (BUD)‘s “First Delivery” Super Bowl commercial won best advertisement in USA Today’s Ad Meter competition, which analyzed 173,000 peoples’ ratings of five dozen commercials.
And an ad for another of its brands, Michelob Ultra, was one of nine commercials to garner an “A” rating from marketing students at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“First Delivery,” a 30-second ad, stars a precocious workhorse who brings a left-behind keg to the bar. The horse is a nod to Budweiser’s heritage; the company says the breed has been part of its marketing campaigns since the 1930s, when it celebrated the end of prohibition by hauling beer to New York in a Clydesdale-drawn wagon.
The beer giant drew on its past after marketing that touched on more contemporary topics sparked controversy. Bud Light worked with Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender influencer, ahead of March Madness in 2023. The sponsorship angered conservative customers, and Anheuser-Busch’s attempt to distance itself from Mulvaney cost it sales at LGBTQ bars.
The “First Delivery” ad “reinforces that we’ve been delivering since 1876 and will continue for decades to come,” Chief Marketing Officer Kyle Norrington told USA Today.
With nearly 124 million viewers, the Super Bowl doubles as both a football game and a marketing showdown. Brands pay millions to promote their products before the large audience. Airtime alone costs roughly $250,000 a second, according to USA Today.
Ads tugged at heartstrings, sought belly laughs and flashed celebrities. Some promoted well-known food and beverages, but others seized on the opportunity to tout everything from car mats to software for corporate finance teams.
And then, of course, there were the beer ads. In “The ULTRA Hustle,” Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara portray a pair of pickleball players that challenge unwitting Michelob Ultra drinkers to matches and repeatedly win free refreshments. (It took third place in the USA Today competition.)
In yet another spot, comedian Shane Gillis, singer Post Malone and football star Peyton Manning combined to plug Bud Light in a lively cul-de-sac.
The Kellogg marketing department crowned “Your Attention Please,” a Novartis (NVS) ad, the best commercial—the first time a pharmaceutical company won its annual review. The spot started out with a “playful” focus on tropes about breasts, and then delivered a serious message about cancer screenings.
“Novartis took a risk to really break through the clutter with its unexpected focus on breast cancer screening,” said Tim Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at Kellogg.