So earning the 2nd spot on IAG Top 10 Most-Recalled 2008 Super Bowl Ad is Thunder, with his bud Dalmatian dog. How touchy… Despite their differences—a dog and a horse—they were best friends.

Thunder almost got the job to become one of the main Budweiser horses, unfortunately, his boss changed his mind and his best friend came to the rescue. Thunder went training for a year, and his efforts paved off when he got the job a year after.

The creative team behind this commercial, really got excellent choices for background music to tell the mood of the story—a sad one, for being rejected; then a Rocky’s theme song while the horse was in training; and lastly, a victorious background music to tell Thunder was finally chosen as one of the main Budweiser’s horses.

In the whole ad, you wouldn’t see any Budweiser bottle, you just saw Thunder’s boss cap with Budweiser on it. And the Budweiser logo at the end of the ad. Sometimes, you don’t need to show the product especially if it is already known. You just have to reinforce the brand like in this case, they reinforced that Budweiser is ‘The Great American Lager’.

But I wouldn’t say that the horse training to become a capable main Budweiser horse wasn’t related to Budweiser beer itself. They were in fact related. Since a ‘lager beer’ is created by storing it for long time so it will taste better. In case of Thunder, his boss thought it was still not the right time, for him to become more capable as Budweiser’s horse. And his boss was right, Thunder still needed another year to become a great Budweiser horse.

One of the most awaited events in U.S. is the championship game of the National Football League (NFL) or more popularly known as the Super Bowl. Americans, however, don’t just anticipate the football game itself, but the commercials that will appear as well.

In Super Bowl, the commercials are being aired for the first time, and these are not just some sort of commercials but high-quality, creative commercials of big products. Even though a 30-seconds of advertising costs millions of dollars in Super Bowl, advertisers still take advantage of airing their brand’s new TVC’s here because of its enormously large audience. In fact, this year’s Super Bowl (February 3) was the most watched Super Bowl ever, with a 97.5 million viewers and aired 50 minutes and 50 seconds of commercial time (Source: Neilsen’s Recap of 2008 Super Bowl Advertising).

While the game is played, 200 “influential” members of Hey! Nielsen, the new social-networking site of Nielsen Media Research, scored “each commercial on a scale from 1 (fumble) to 4 (touchdown) in real-time.” Here are the results of the survey. I found most of them funny, and ideas are simple but with great, creative execution.

10. Bud Light Cheese Ad (Rating: 3.31)

9. Bridgestone: Richard Simmons (Rating: 3.32)

8. NFL: Ephraim Salaam and Chester Pitts (Rating: 3.39)

7. Bud Light Fire Breathe (Rating: 3.41)

6. Bridgestone Animals Screaming (Rating: 3.45)

5. Pepsi: Justin Timberlake - Magnetic (Rating: 3.50)

4. FedEx - Pigeons (Rating: 3.51)

3. Diet Pepsi Max - What is Love? (Rating: 3.53)

2. Coke: Parade Balloons - It’s mine (Rating: 3.56)

1. Budweiser: Horse/Dalmatian (Rating: 3.67)

“According to live polling results, famous personalities scored high among members. Budweiser was the highest ranked ad, with an average of 3.67 for its Horse/Dalmation spot…

Deeper qualitative analysis reveals that most viewers wanted something new and funny, as 62% of members said that humor influences their purchase behavior. Other qualities of an ad that motivate consumers include excitement (9%), surprise (8%) and inspiration (8%).” Source: Nielsen’s Recap of 2008 Super Bowl Advertising