The Best Story Told In Super Bowl 2021 Advertising

Anheuser-Busch’s spot “Let’s Grab A Beer” reached a blissful human truth: sharing a beer is never about the beer.  However, through great writing and production, the ad told us much more than that.  It showed us that we crave each other.  We love our communities, our pasts, our present, our achievements, our losses, and being human.

Throughout the commercial we see varying scenes of human experiences: newlyweds laughing at their disaster wedding, friends comforting each other at a funeral.  Through each of these we see the highs and lows of our existence, but one of my favorite lines is “Flight crew’s next door eating pizza.”  A great example of a six-word-story, and one that tells a bittersweet anecdote.

The stories Anheuser-Busch told were great because they told us they will be there for us when this is all over without saying, “We will be there for you when this is all over.”  We are tired of that messaging, but no one is tired of remembering the best (and worst) parts of communal experiences.  

Maybe this wasn’t the best advertisement of The Big Game, because it did not sell me Anheuser-Busch necessarily.  You barely see any branding in the commercial at all, and the line “it’s never about the beer” doesn’t exactly make you want an Anheuser-Busch beer.  Even so, it was the best story of the night.  As storytellers, we have to remember that insights are the most important part of reaching audiences.  The insight that “It’s about being together” remains true no matter what times we are in.