Budweiser won the Super Bowl

Budweiser made like the Seattle Seahawks on Super Bowl Sunday and decisively declared victory over its rivals.

The AB InBev beer brand scored a record 10th win on the USA Today Ad Meter, and its second in a row. Budweiser’s patriotic spot, called “American Icons,” celebrates the brand’s 150th anniversary with clips following its iconic Clydesdale and a bald eagle (whose real name is Lincoln and who is perhaps best known for flying around Lincoln Financial Field during Eagles home games) growing up together set to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.”

Budweiser, like the Seahawks, is hardly an underdog. This year, not only did it win the Ad Meter, but it also performed strongly according to several other ad rankers as well, which were based on a variety of factors like emotional resonance, engagement, and social mentions.

Across the board, Lay’s, Dunkin’, and Michelob Ultra also appeared repeatedly at the top of various ad rankers, demonstrating that while different strategic and creative approaches can lead to Super Bowl success, it’s hard to compete with legacy.

Victory lap: Budweiser, which has the benefit of an AB InBev marketing budget, as well as the parent company’s decades-long run as the Super Bowl’s exclusive alcohol advertiser until four years ago, had the largest volume of social mentions of any Super Bowl brand, with 13.7%, according to the market research company Ipsos.

The beer giant came in at No. 8 on measurement platform EDO’s list, which graded Super Bowl ads based on engagement signals including searches for the brand, site visits, and app downloads immediately after ads aired. “American Icons” got 4.1x the engagement of the median ad in this year’s Super Bowl, EDO found.

It came in at No. 3 on creative effectiveness platform System1’s list, which ranked Super Bowl ads using a platform trained with more than 100,000 ads to measure whether they can “make people feel intense, positive emotions.” Creative intelligence platform Daivid also placed Budweiser’s ad at No. 3; its methodology is based on which ads “generated the strongest positive emotional response.”

Play it as it Lay’s: Lay’s “Last Harvest” ad, which chronicles the emotional story of a potato farmer retiring and passing his business along to his daughter, came in at No. 2 on the Ad Meter and No. 3 on EDO’s engagement list, with 7.1x the engagement of the median ad. It landed in the top 10 in both System1 and Daivid’s emotional response rankings.

Lay’s was notably absent from a couple of social trackers, including Ipsos’s top 20, but its presence on the other lists, alongside Budweiser, indicates that tugging at the heartstrings is still a strong Super Bowl strategy.

Slam Dunkin’: Dunkin’, on the other hand, led with laughs, another tried-and-true Big Game ad strategy that was especially prevalent this year. The brand surprised viewers with a stacked cast that included Jennifer Aniston, Jason Alexander, Matt LeBlanc, and, of course, Ben Affleck, in a spot playing on ’90s nostalgia.

• The 60-second spot, “Good Will Dunkin’,” was No. 4 on the Ad Meter.
• Dunkin’ came in at No. 5 on EDO’s list, with 5x the median engagement.
• It was No. 7 on Daivid’s list, but absent from System1’s top 10.
• On social, Dunkin’ claimed 1.8% of the volume of Super Bowl brand mentions, per Ipsos.

Ultraviolet: Michelob Ultra, another AB InBev brand, claimed the No. 5 Ad Meter spot with “The Ultra Instructor” starring Kurt Russell, Lewis Pullman, and Olympians Chloe Kim and T. J. Oshie, showcasing the power of a legacy brand combined with a celeb cast.

• Michelob Ultra also claimed its fair share of social volume, with 8.5% of mentions, the fourth most of any advertiser, according to Ipsos.
• The ad ranked No. 5 on System1’s list.

Cold front: Pepsi, which raised eyebrows with an ad called “The Choice” that depicts a polar bear taking the Pepsi Challenge and selecting Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero, made the Ad Meter top 5 at No. 3. It came in at No. 7 place on System1’s list, while also making noise in the social sphere:

• Pepsi Zero Sugar claimed more than 10% of social volume, per Ipsos, more than any other brand aside from Budweiser.
• Sprout Social found that Pepsi had the highest message volume, followed by Apple Music, Budweiser, Xfinity, and Levi’s.