After several days of indecision and a plea for public input, Anheuser-Busch said today it plans to include a Budweiser Clydesdales spot in its five minutes of advertising during this Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The spot is 60 seconds long and will appear during the game’s fourth quarter, according to A-B. The ad is called “Fence” and follows a bull and a Clydesdale growing up together, yet separated by a fence.

Earlier last week, A-B unveiled a lineup of nine spots that did not include the popular horses – marking the first time in at least eight Super Bowls that the Clydesdales would be sidelined from the Big Game.

A-B said it had produced a Clydesdale ad (worked on by Chicago’s DDB), but the spot failed to make the cut because it did not test well with focus groups.

A public uproar followed. And two days later, the brewer reconsidered. It put the “Fence” ad and two other Budweiser spots on Facebook, welcoming the public to vote on their favorite. The brewer said it was not bound by the popular vote, but it was clear from looking at the more than 3,000 comments that “Fence” was the favorite.

Squeezing in the 60-second Clydesdale ad shook up A-B’s Super Bowl lineup – and forced an unfortunate consequence for St. Louis ad agency Cannonball. The agency had scored a big victory by producing – for the first time – all five Bud Light ads set to run during the Super Bowl. But it lost one of those ads (a funny spot called “Book Club”) when “Fence” was added. Also dropped was a Budweiser spot called “Payment.”

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