Bud Slips Clydesdales Into Super Bowl at the Last Minute

Want the latest Super Bowl ad news in your inbox? Sign up here to receive our revamped Super Bowl Alerts newsletter. Budweiser's Clydesdales are going to be in the Super Bowl after all—for all of five seconds. The brew plans to run the so-called bumper ad in the second quarter to promote its "Clydesdales Cam," which will show the horses in real-time on Bud's Facebook page, according to a spokesman. The move apparently represents a change in course. Anheuser-Busch InBev executives late last week said the Clydesdales would sit out the game on TV and only be featured online. The digital strategy includes a 60-second digital spot released Tuesday that shows a Clydesdale galloping by places including the Grand Canyon and the Gateway Arch in Bud's St. Louis hometown. Most of Bud's TV time—60 seconds—will be dedicated to a spot by David that plugs the brewer's canned water disaster relief program. The five-second spot technically extends the Clydesdales Super Bowl TV streak to 18 years. Indeed, they will actually get more air time than last year, when they made a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance in a spot that told the story of how German immigrant Adolphus Busch founded the company. In a reader poll Ad Age published Tuesday that drew 1,300 votes, 69% of respondents favored the 60-second Clydesdales ad over the canned water spot.

Bud Slips Clydesdales Into Super Bowl at the Last Minute

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