As we previously reported, Anheuser Busch (Budweiser, Bud Light) had exclusive rights from the NFL to run beer ads during the Super Bowl, thus no other Beer ads ran nationally. So how did Bud take advantage of the premier positioning? Not so well in my opinion. Budweiser and Bud Light have run some of the best Super Bowl ads of the past 20 years, but this year I think they came up a bit short. Here are all of their ads, courtesy of Hulu:

Clearly Budweiser had some internal directive which led them to run campy Clydesdale ads that really didn’t deliver. It was as if they were advertising to women:

Bud Light Lime, the new kid in town delivered an equally ineffective attempt. Yes, we get it, you can drink this crap year round if you want:

Bud Light definitely brought more edge with their commercials, and were the best of the Anheuser Busch family. While decently amusing, even these commercials come up short of past campaigns, and are not destined to become quotable classics:

So unless I missed something, that was 27 Million dollars worth of advertising time, that failed to make a substantial impact. If it weren’t for their Secret Online Ad, I would consider this year a total fail for them. What do you think?