Brew­ing com­pa­ny Anheuser-Busch is a super­pow­er Super Bowl adver­tis­er this year with five spots. But that’s no sur­prise. Its beer brand Bud­weis­er specif­i­cal­ly is per­haps the most pow­er­ful and mem­o­rable Super Bowl adver­tis­er of all time. But why exact­ly?

A Walk Down Super Bowl Memory Lane

Bud­weis­er is the brand behind the infa­mous pup­py that topped Ad Meter’s rank­ings in back-to-back Super Bowls in 2014 and 2015. But it’s also the adver­tis­er that pro­pelled “Whas­sup?” into the Amer­i­can lex­i­con in 2000 and thrust a trio of frogs to world­wide star­dom. In fact, Bud­weis­er has five spots, which also include its 9/11 trib­ute, Respect, and its mil­i­tary thank-you, Applause, in Ad Age’s Super Bowl Top 50 Count­down. In oth­er words, Bud­weis­er sin­gle-hand­ed­ly accounts for 10 per­cent of the top Super Bowl ads of all time. That’s no small feat.

Widespread Acclaim

What’s more, Bud­weis­er was the most pop­u­lar brand in Momentology’s sur­vey of 50 mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als’ favorite Super Bowl ads of all time – account­ing for 30 per­cent of the respons­es. In addi­tion, a recent study from inter­ac­tive tele­vi­sion ser­vice TiVo and cus­tomer intel­li­gence plat­form Vision Crit­i­cal found Pup­py Love to be the #1 Super Bowl spot of the last 50 years. And, once again, Bud­weis­er was the most pop­u­lar brand on the list with four ads in the top 10. Fur­ther, the study not­ed emo­tion­al ads with ani­mals and chil­dren are most pop­u­lar across demo­graph­ics over­all.

A Successful Formula

Bud­weis­er cer­tain­ly hasn’t been shy about tap­ping into the appeal of ani­mals. Even 30 years ago, Bud­weis­er was air­ing Super Bowl spots that paired dogs and Clydes­dales – a theme it has revis­it­ed time and again. And, in 2009, its Cir­cus spot with a horse love sto­ry not even a cal­lous ring­mas­ter can thwart, touched on themes sim­i­lar to those found five years lat­er in Pup­py Love.

In short, if there’s a win­ning for­mu­la for Bud­weis­er in the Super Bowl, it seems to be: Mon­ey + Ani­mals + Patri­o­tism. But if it was that sim­ple, why aren’t more adver­tis­ers able to repli­cate Budweiser’s suc­cess? Mar­keters, take note: This is what you need to know to cre­ate Bud­weis­er-like appeal in the Super Bowl:

1. TiVo was Right: Emotion & Animals

For his part, Duane For­rester, vice pres­i­dent of organ­ic search oper­a­tions at mar­ket­ing and SEO firm Bruce Clay, calls Budweiser’s Super Bowl ads “emo­tion­al­ly attach­ing moments” in adver­tis­ing. “Let’s look at the 2015 ad here. Cute pup­py. Tough world out there. Dan­ger. Courage. Loy­al­ty. Fam­i­ly. Sup­port. All con­cepts that shine clear­ly through­out the adver­tise­ment,” For­rester said. “Yeah, every­one knows the hors­es haul the famous trail­er full of suds. But this ad isn’t about beer. It’s about us, the watch­ers, and what mat­ters to us. The ad attach­es the brand to con­cepts we hold dear, would lay down our lives for. It’s a clas­sic sto­ry of what’s pos­si­ble when you don’t give up and get a lit­tle help from your friends.”

In addi­tion, For­rester said “it helps more than a lit­tle bit” that view­ers have a ten­den­cy to anthro­po­mor­phize human feel­ings on ani­mals and that Amer­i­can con­sumers cer­tain­ly have soft spots in their hearts for pets.

2. Consistency

Accord­ing to a Bud­weis­er rep, the brand has been an in-game adver­tis­er since 1975. “How many Super Bowls has Bud­weis­er missed over the last 30 years?” asks Ryan Berman, chief cre­ative offi­cer at com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny the i.d.e.a. Brand. “We can’t say this about many oth­er brands. Whether it was the humor of the frogs or the cur­rent nos­tal­gia plat­form of the Clydes­dales, most of us think of Bud­weis­er and the Super Bowl as syn­ony­mous. We’re not just judg­ing them on the mer­it of one 60-sec­ond ad: it’s the full body of work over three decades – cap­i­tal­iz­ing on aggre­gat­ed equi­ty – that adds up. It’s the clos­est thing we’ve got to a very long movie sequel we actu­al­ly want to see.” Fur­ther, Bruce Clark, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of mar­ket­ing at the D’Amore-McKim School of Busi­ness at North­east­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, notes one con­se­quence of Budweiser’s longevi­ty is that the brand owns the con­cept of Clydes­dales in con­sumers’ minds. “As a base­line, they can almost nev­er go wrong with a Clydes­dale ad, espe­cial­ly for old­er con­sumers,” Clark said. In addi­tion, Bud­weis­er has deliv­ered on humor for the every­man, such as in Whas­sup and Frogs, and has also linked its brand to the game itself in Bud Bowls, Clark added. “I can’t think of anoth­er adver­tis­er that has done this so well for so long,” Clark said. “There is a reser­voir of good will and expec­ta­tion around Bud­weis­er ads in the Super Bowl that almost makes them part of the Super Bowl expe­ri­ence itself.” Fur­ther, con­sis­ten­cy has also enabled Bud­weis­er to build a brand syn­ony­mous with cer­tain emo­tions and to rein­force its desired brand cues, said Josh Berg­er, vice pres­i­dent at mar­ket­ing con­sult­ing and ana­lyt­ics firm Phoenix Mar­ket­ing Inter­na­tion­al. “The mes­sage is part of who the brand is, what it stands for and the mes­sage is authen­tic to con­sumers,” he said. “This brand cue is so strong that Bud­weis­er can spend the oth­er 51 weeks of the year with oth­er brand mes­sages like craft [beer] and con­certs – but con­sumers know they can still come back on Super Bowl Sun­day and see the next chap­ter in the Clydes­dale sto­ry.”

3. Preparation

One mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­al who has worked on pre­vi­ous Bud­weis­er Super Bowl cam­paigns, John Imme­soete, who is now chief cre­ative offi­cer at mar­ket­ing com­pa­ny Epsilon, says Bud­weis­er deserves the title of Great­est Super Bowl Adver­tis­er of all Time because it is the most focused on strate­gi­cal­ly attack­ing the assign­ment. Bud sets a goal – win­ning the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter Poll – and con­ducts all its resources against it. Agen­cies ana­lyze what wins and devel­op many ads toward crack­ing the poll, he said. “Bud shoots way more ads than it airs,” Imme­soete said. “It tests them in groups around the coun­try that close­ly mim­ic the Ad Meter room and runs those ads that score the high­est. The only thing left to chance is what the com­pe­ti­tion, who they can’t con­trol, bring to the table.” In oth­er words, Bud­weis­er estab­lish­es a clear goal and does all it can to deliv­er on that sin­gu­lar goal. “By doing so, they have few­er fail­ures and a col­lec­tive body of work that makes them the great­est Super Bowl adver­tis­er ever,” he said. “Smart plan­ning com­bined with great cre­ative resources and plen­ty of them. It’s no acci­dent.”

4. Quality

Indeed, even though Bud­weis­er may not always cre­ate the per­fect Super Bowl ad with each attempt, Gary J. Nix, chief strat­e­gy offi­cer at brand­ing agency bdot, says it has cre­at­ed many qual­i­ty ads by this point – and ads that have stood the test of time at that. And no adver­tis­er could reach this point with­out a strong body of qual­i­ty con­tent.

5. Relevance

In addi­tion, Nix says Bud­weis­er also ben­e­fits because the very prod­uct it makes is the per­fect match for foot­ball, which fur­ther enhances its cred­i­bil­i­ty as an anchor spon­sor.