Lost dog finds way to top of Super Bowl Ad Meter

The Budweiser puppy has done what the Seattle Seahawks could not — it won back-to-back Super Bowls.

If you’re keeping score, not only is that two in a row for the puppy, but three in a row for Anheuser-Busch and the 13th time in the past 15 years that Anheuser-Busch has won USA TODAY’s Ad Meter ranking of all the ads by a consumer panel.

For the 27th consecutive year, USA TODAY’S Ad Meter’s consumer panel of 6,703 voters rated the Super Bowl ads — 61 commercials that cost advertisers up to a record $4.5 million per 30-seconds of airtime.

Finishing second was a stereotype-bashing spot for an unlikely Super Bowl advertiser, the Always feminine products brand from P&G. It aimed to make viewers rethink what it means to act “like a girl.”

Third, was a humorous Fiat Chrysler commercial about an amorous, elderly Italian man who loses his iconic, blue Viagra-like pill at just the wrong moment.

In the Budweiser “Lost Dog” ad, a puppy gets lost, but makes it back home after being saved from a wolf by his pals, the Budweiser Clydesdales.

Yes, it was a sequel to the “Puppy Love” commercial that won last year’s Ad Meter and Bud used the same strategy to build buzz. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” says Brian Perkins, vice president, Budweiser. He says the company again released teaser content weeks in advance and then unveiled the ad itself last Wednesday.