A Detailed Analysis: Budweiser's 'Puppy Love' Super Bowl Campaign

This report provides a detailed analysis of Budweiser's 'Puppy Love' commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl XVI. The assignment examines the ad's narrative, focusing on the relationship between a puppy, a horse, and a human, highlighting the themes of friendship and reunion. The analysis explores the marketing strategies employed, including the use of emotional storytelling to connect with viewers. The report discusses the commercial's timing, targeting animal lovers, and leveraging the Super Bowl's large audience to increase brand awareness and sales. The report also evaluates the commercial's use of ethos, pathos, and logos, and how these elements contributed to its success, along with references to research on Super Bowl advertising and marketing campaigns.

Running head: ANALYSIS OF BUDWEISER “PUPPY LOVE”
Analysis of “Puppy love”
Name of the Student:
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Author Note

1ANALYSIS OF BUDWEISER “PUPPY LOVE”
Thesis Statement – To perform an analysis of the “Puppy Love” campaign launched by
Budweiser during the Super Bowl XVI campaign
Budweiser’s “Puppy Love” is a campaign that was launched by Budweiser during the
time of Super Bowl XVI. The commercial had a beautiful message about the relationship
between human beings and their animal companions. The commercial was a campaign by
Budweiser to increase the sales of their drinks during the time of the Super Bowl. The
commercial focuses on the relationship between a man, his puppy and his horse. In the
commercial, we see the relationship between a puppy and a horse, and how the puppy gets
separated from his owner and the horse and how the horse ultimately saves the puppy and
brings him back to the owner and all of them are reunited again. The ad proved to be quite
successful during that time.
The commercial mentioned above is a beautiful example of friendship that can
be seen between human beings and animals. In the beginning of the ad, a puppy adaption
center is shown and it is also shown that one puppy escapes from the center to meet a
neighbor and his horse at the barn. No matter how much the neighbor tries to return the
puppy to the center, it comes back. One day the puppy gets sold to a person. While he was
driving back, the car gets stopped by the horses and finally the horses bring the puppy back.
The puppy reunites with the owner of the horse as well as the owner of the adaption center.
The ad ends with the puppy playing with the horse in the barn while being watched by their
owners. The above-mentioned commercial is targeted at the time of the Super Bowl to ensure
that the customers continue buying their drinks by getting attracted to the commercial of the
relationship between the human being and the animals. The ethos in the commercial is that
the makers of the commercial uses the commercial to attract the audiences. It has been
specially placed during the time of the Super Bowl so that the audience thinks that the
advertisement is unique. This would increase the sales of their products. As stated by Shin

2ANALYSIS OF BUDWEISER “PUPPY LOVE”
(112), the most important reason for this is first of all, it’s the time of the Super Bowl.
Budweiser had cleverly planned their campaign at such a time that their sales will increase
due to more and more customers buying the drinks. Moreover, the commercial is based on
the old American saying of “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”, although this is presented
in the form of the relationship between the puppy and the horse. The puppy that came to meet
the horse ultimately gets sold one day to a person. While the person was driving back, the car
gets stopped by the horses and finally the puppy returns to his friend. This tells a strong sense
of friendship between the animals, which forms a strong reason for the success of the
commercial. This is because the ad manages to get the attention of the animal lovers. This
beautiful relationship between the animals and the human is the sense of pathos that they
have used in the commercial. This is because the commercial aims at the love between the
animals which is a strong emotional factor in the commercial. Therefore, this is a sense of
pathos in the commercial.
As stated by Chong (38), the second reason why the commercial is successful is that it
is entirely without the use of dialogues. The commercial conveys the entire story with just
the visuals which grabs the attention of the customers better than it would have with the use
of the sound. There is no need of dialogue to provide commentary on what is happening. It is
all in the visuals for the audience to see.
The third and the final reason for the success of the commercial is the timing of the
commercial. Budweiser had successfully launched their commercial at a time when the Super
Bowl is going on and the sales of their product will be at an all-time high. Thus, careful and
meticulous timings of the launch of their campaign as well as showcasing the spirit of
brotherhood through the medium of animals is what the makes the Puppy Love commercial
so successful. This is the logos in the commercial. The logos is the timing which Budweiser
uses to place the commercial. Through this commercial, Budweiser achieves two things at the

3ANALYSIS OF BUDWEISER “PUPPY LOVE”
same time – they not only make profit out of their commercials but also manages to spread a
beautiful information about the brotherhood of the animals (Shin, 112). As stated by Chong
(41), thus, they promote both the spirit of animal love and festive spirit.
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that Budweiser Puppy Love campaign
not only manages to gain customers through their commercials but also wins the heart of
millions of customers by portraying the beautiful story of the brotherhood of the animals and
the humans especially between the puppy and the horse (Shin, 118). Thus, this is truly one of
the most successful campaigns that Budweiser has ever made in their campaign. There lies,
the success of the campaign.

4ANALYSIS OF BUDWEISER “PUPPY LOVE”
Reference List
Brothers, Anthony Cole. "Why the Anomaly that is Super Bowl Marketing is a Justifiable
Investment." (2018).
Ferraro, Adam. "Storytelling in Marketing Tourism Products." (2016).
Oh, Chong, et al. "Discovering Twitter Metrics for Creative Super Bowl Campaigns."
Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. VI). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden, 2016. 37-
50.
Poore, Wesley. The Use of Humor in Super Bowl Advertising: A Content Analysis. Diss.
University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2018.
Rellahan, Celina. "Storytelling Revealed in Super Bowl 2016 Advertisements." (2016).
Scalercio, Lena. Obtaining Brand Loyalty Through" Man's Best Friend". Diss. University of
Southern California, 2016.
Shin, Hyeonjeong, Changhyun Byun, and Hyeoncheol Lee. "The influence of social media:
Twitter usage pattern during the 2014 super bowl game." International Journal of
Multimedia and Ubiquitous Engineering 10.3 (2015): 109-118.

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