Viewers liked the Baby Clydesdale.
It’s a good thing Budweiser expanded its Super Bowl ad buy to national after originally planning a regional spot earlier this year—the beer brand’s new Clydesdale ad took the top spot on USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter. Called “First Delivery,” the ad shows a young horse going to enormous lengths to deliver a keg of Budweiser to a bar.
FCB New York worked on the 30-second spot. Budweiser told Ad Age last month that it invested in a national airing after favorable early results to its Super Bowl teasers of the ad. Budweiser received 3.5 stars on Ad Age’s Super Bowl ad review.
Indeed, viewers voiced their enthusiasm for “Baby Clydesdale” on social media platform X on Sunday night after it aired.
A look at the top 10 of USA Today’s Ad Meter.
This is the ninth time Budweiser has won USA Today’s Ad Meter competition, which is now in its 37th year. The rankings are the results of public scoring ads from 1 to 10. Budweiser’s ad scored 3.56. The scores of the top five ads, which are all between 3.49 and 3.56, are much lower than the 2024 rankings. Those ratings were above 6.
After Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Budweiser, Lay’s, which told the story of a young girl growing a potato in “The Little Farmer,” ranked second highest with a score of 3.55.
Rounding out the rest of the Ad Meter’s top five ads were Michelob Ultra’s “The Ultra Hustle,” which scored 3.52; Stella Artois’ “David + David,” which scored 3.51; and the NFL’s “Somebody,” which scored 3.49. Bud Light’s “Big Men on Cul-de-Sac” placed seventh, meaning all four of AB InBev’s Super Bowl ads cracked the top 10. Molson Coors’ Coors Light, the only other beer in the game, was ranked No. 18 for “Slow Monday.”
Budweiser’s ad didn’t score as high on a list from Daivid, a platform which uses AI to measure creative effectiveness. The beer brand’s ad ranked 10th on that list, which found that 50.2% of people had an intense positive emotional response to it. Daivid’s top Super Bowl spot went to the NFL’s “Somebody,” to which 55.8% of people had a positive emotion.
Last year, State Farm, which showed Arnold Schwarzenegger as “Agent State Farm,” took the top ranking on USA Today’s Ad Meter. The insurer canceled its Super Bowl ad plans this year to focus on customer support during the Los Angeles wildfires.
