You can’t expect every commercial to be a hit, but with the money and branding behind Anheuser-Busch, you’d think they could do better than 3 out of the 4 worst commercials. So which ones failed?
The ads for Budweiser Black Crown, created by Anomaly, were two of the ones that came up short on Super Bowl Sunday. Much like Bud Light Platinum last year, Black Crown’s spots didn’t win over the viewers. It should be noted, however, that #keepitplatinum managed to sell quite a bit of beer for AB. I thought this year’s commercials did a reasonable job of conveying the market after which they are going but lacked entertainment value. And unless you were closely paying attention to the dialogue, you wouldn’t even have caught on that Black Crown was the winner of a consumer contest.
On the other end of the spectrum, Anomaly was also responsible for the real star of the day, Budweiser’s new Clydesdale foal and his former trainer. “Brotherhood” not only took the top spot in USA Today ad meter, it is also the 3rd most shared Super Bowl commercial of all time behind VW’s “The Force” and another AB Clydesdale spot.”
The Beck’s Sapphire ad from Mother also fell in the bottom five. It didn’t really say much about the beer, but it had a singing fish and a remix of a great 90s jam. I’m flummoxed as to why it wasn’t a fan favorite. At least my pregame prediction was correct. Chet Faker’s rendition of the song has made a huge jump on Amazon, from #12,005 to #296.
Bud Light’s voodoo commercials, created by Translation, featuring Stevie Wonder and Zoe Saldana landed in the middle of the pack. They were entertaining and a solid culmination (hopefully) of the on-going campaign of gameday superstitions. Several of the people with whom I was watching were confused by the ads, but they were also unsober.
UPDATE: The article originally listed McGarry Bowen as the agency of record for the Black Crown ads. This has been corrected to Anomaly. My bad, MGB, you guys are cool.