Game of Thrones drops surprise Bud Light Super Bowl ad

The ad takes place during a jousting contest where The Mountain (Haftór Júlíus Bj?rnsson) defeats the defender of the Bud Light “Dilly Dilly” kingdom and then a dragon blasts the whole affair.

The ad reunited more than 25 people from the Game of Thrones crew and was directed by David Nutter, who helms multiple episodes in the show’s final season and directed several previous episodes of the series. Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss were also involved.

The move comes amid fan speculation that GoT might drop a season 8 trailer during the big game. While a trailer is not expected Sunday, the Budweiser ad manages to promote the show’s upcoming final season without releasing any new footage.

In case you’re wondering, by and by, what “Dilly Dilly” means, Business Insider once asked that question to Anheuser-Busch InBev Chief Marketing Officer Miguel Patricio, who noted last year that the ads were originally inspired by Game of Thrones.

“‘Dilly Dilly’ doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “That’s the beauty of it. I think that we all need our moments of nonsense and fun. And I think that ‘Dilly Dilly,’ in a way, represents that. A lot of people asked me, ‘How did you approve that?’ To tell you the truth, we never expected this to be so successful. It didn’t test that well. We did that ad, actually, because of — the new season of Game of Thrones coming, but when we tested, it didn’t test that well. We said, ‘Consumers will get it.’ And especially with repetition. We have a chance here for this to become big. So, we went against the research and we gave a chance to ‘Dilly Dilly’ and we are so happy!”

Here are all the previous “Dilly Dilly” ads:

GoT returns April 14. Here are all the other Super Bowl LIII trailers.