A wounded Clydesdale. The faithful Labrador retriever who cares about him. An unlikely recovery. A ending born of resilience. The endline, In the home of the brave, down never means out. Budweiser’s Super Bowl ad is Hollywood story meets US positivity.

It’s all about leading the mood of the moment in the US and putting Budweiser into the centre of it. It has been a harsh two years and Budweiser decided not to run a Super Bowl ad last year. Instead, it invested the money into vaccine education, including donating a portion of its air time in 2021 to The Ad Council and COVID Collaborative, a coalition of experts in health, education and the economy.

“For us to come back, with a symbol of America but also a story of injury, the road to recovery and ultimately, this triumph, I think is a really important message for the country to hear right now and one that really, only Budweiser can tell in this way,” Daniel Blake, Budweiser’s vice president of marketing, told USA Today Sports. “It should ultimately be a really unifying message that everyone can come together and feel pride that as Americans, we always bounce back.”

The commercial was directed by Chloé Zhao, 39, who won the best director Oscar for Nomadland in 2020 and became the first Asian woman to receive the honour and the second woman in the history of the Academy Awards to win for directing.