The Importance of Storytelling in Super Bowl Ads

The Budweiser advertisement “Lost Dog” aired during the Super Bowl in 2015. In the ad, a puppy accidentally hitches a ride away from home and gets lost, much to the dismay of his friend, the Clydesdale. When he finds his way back to the ranch, he is nearly attacked by a wolf, but the Budweiser Clydesdales come to his rescue and bring him safely back home.

The commercial’s tone is sentimental; it’s intended to make viewers emotional. The Budweiser Clydesdales are iconic, and because the ad opens with a shot of a Clydesdale and a man in a Budweiser hat, the audience is likely to identify immediately that Budweiser is the advertiser. The man’s hat is seen showing Budweiser’s logo repeatedly throughout the ad, but it isn’t until the last two seconds of the commercial that Budweiser’s logo fills the frame.

“Lost Dog” tells a multi-act story, starting with the exposition that tells viewers that the commercial is about a man, his horse and his puppy. Rising action begins when the puppy jumps in the horse trailer to explore and the trailer door is closed, leaving him trapped inside, and continues through the Clydesdales standing behind the puppy to protect him from the wolf. The climax of the story occurs when the man sees his puppy running towards the house, backed by the clydesdales, and we know the puppy is safely back home. We see the falling action when the man bathes his puppy; the resolution to the story is in the final seconds of the ad when the man is sitting in the barn with his puppy and horse, drinking a beer.

Budweiser’s ad for the 2016 Super Bowl, “Not Backing Down,” took a different approach, showing images associated with the brand and phrases about what Budweiser is not. Unlike Budweiser’s typical Super Bowl ads, the ad this year does not tell a story.

The commercial has an inspirational tone, rather than the emotional tone the last few years’ ads have had. Like last year’s advertisement, Budweiser can be identified immediately because the first image shown is that of a Clydesdale, but the first clear identifications of Budweiser come at the 19 second mark on the back of an employee’s jacket and at 22 seconds in neon lights on top of a building.

Considering Budweiser’s 2016 commercial didn’t tell a story, their 2015 ad has a far stronger narrative. “Lost Dog” was the top Super Bowl ad of 2015 (Hulu Top 2015 Super Bowl Ads); “Not Backing Down” isn’t likely to get very high on this year’s list. The friends I spent game day with were excited to see the Clydesdale come onto the screen, but were quickly disappointed by the lack of genuine emotion in the ad. When the commercial ended, we all let out a synchronized, unenthused “oh.” Because of our high expectations for Budweiser’s yearly Super Bowl ads it caught our attention, but it didn’t hold it in the same way as “Lost Dog.” It wasn’t a bad commercial, but it focused so much on the product itself that it isn’t one people are likely to share.

In the past, Budweiser has been highly successful in telling stories that pull at viewers’ heartstrings. Given the reactions to this year’s ad, lacking in narrative structure, versus the reactions to the stories told in the commercials of years past, it appears that Super Bowl advertisements are more effective if they tell a story.