Puppies and Horses and Beer Brands, Oh My!

If you’re not a huge football fan like myself then the Super Bowl isn’t a time for team rivalry, it’s a time for commercials. And if you’re a dog person then you also know that Super Bowl commercials means Budweiser puppy ads. The famous ad from the beer company aired at the 2014 Super Bowl and has risen to the top of classic football advertising.

In the ad, Puppy Love, it shows a puppy up for adoption who sneaks out into the horse stable to meet a Budweiser classic clydesdale horse. Throughout the video, the puppy continually runs away from its owner until the owner ends up giving the puppy away.

It’s almost time to cue the waterworks because as the puppy is getting driven away by its new owner the horse from the beginning of the video is running alongside the car. Somehow this horse as well as its other horse friends stop the car, retrieve the puppy and bring him home. All is well as the horse, the man and the woman staring the in the video and the puppy are all home and happy.

As far as ads go, this one is a feel good ad that pulls on your heartstrings. It is able to tell a lighthearted story of the friendship between a puppy and a horse only through dynamic camera angles and emotion filled music. At no point in the video do the creators blatantly say that it is an ad. However, there are little clues throughout the video. There is a Budweiser logo in the right hand corner as well as the man in the video wearing a Budweiser hat. And who can forget the classic Budweiser clydesdale horses.

2014 wasn’t the first that Budweiser tapped into our love of animals. In 2013, their Super Bowl ad featured their signature horses again but this time the bond was between the horse and his owner instead of a puppy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0HI4DAmVDo

The video begins with a young horse, showing it growing up with a man and the bond they created during those years. Then the Budweiser truck comes to pick up the clydesdale to be a part of their parades. The next scene shows the man at one of these parades where he spots his horse. The reunion is bittersweet as they are separated by a barrier. After the parade the man is getting back in his car when in his mirror he sees his horse running down the street. Once again Budweiser draws tears as the two have a moment in the middle of the road.

This ad also uses emotions to hook the viewer, just like the first one. But unlike the first one, this video makes it much more apparent that it is an ad. They have a Budweiser truck in the video and a parade for the company on top of the logo in the corner and Budweiser merchandise everywhere. This ad unfortunately doesn’t have a complete story because it ends with the horse and man in the road. It would be nice to see where the two ended up after the parade, whether it be apart or back together.

While both of these ads are incredibly similar, I think the first one is much stronger. It has a more complete story arch, with a beginning, middle and end. But even though I think the story of the first ad is stronger, I lean more towards the second ad in terms of content. While I’m all for puppies, I connect more with the bond between the man and his horse. The first ad went viral after it aired which showed that the general public had a strong response to it when compared to the second ad.