The group's first televised performance of the single was at the 2013 Teen Choice Awards on 11 August. The song was subsequently added to the set-list to all proceeding shows of the American leg. The group performed 'Best Song Ever' live for the first time on 30 July 2013 at the SAP center in San Jose, California during their Take Me Home Tour concert until their final live at Japan. The video broke the Vevo 24-hour record with 12.3 million views, surpassing the 10.7 million views of Miley Cyrus' ' We Can't Stop' in June, although the record was later broken again by Cyrus' follow-up music video ' Wrecking Ball', which garnered 19.3 million views. The music video won a British Video at the 2014 Brit Awards on 19 February 2014. Interspersed with scenes from their film One Direction: This is Us, the band are shown wreaking havoc throughout the office and even throwing in a few dance moves for good measure.

The studio executives are stoked to take the band to the proverbial next level, but they proceed to bring in an under-qualified crew consisting of Marcel, 'The Marketing Guy' ( Harry Styles) and Leeroy, 'The Choreographer' ( Liam Payne). Niall Horan plays studio executive Harvey ( Harvey Weinstein), Louis Tomlinson plays studio executive Jonny (modelled after Tom Cruise's character Les Grossman in the movie Tropic Thunder), and Zayn Malik plays 'The Sexy Assistant', Veronica. The video is over six minutes long and features the band arguing with clueless studio executives in a battle over their new image. Filmed over two days at The Temple House in Miami Beach, Florida, the video was released on the band's Vevo channel on 22 July 2013. The music video for 'Best Song Ever' was directed by Ben Winston and written by comedian James Corden. The Who guitarist Pete Townshend responded to the claims by denying that The Who were pursuing legal action, and stated that he was a fan of One Direction's single and was happy that One Direction appeared to have been influenced by The Who, just as he had been by his own guitar heroes such as Eddie Cochran. In the course of a debate on Twitter, it was alleged that the song was a rip off of ' Baba O'Riley' by The Who, which angered One Direction's fans. Lewis Corner at Digital Spy also awarded the song 4 out of 5 stars, writing: 'Sure the lyrics are cheesier than a 6-pack of Wotsits, and yes the sentiment is cornier than a Disney Channel rom-com, but as far as boyband pop anthems go it skirts dangerously close to fulfilling its title.' Will Hermes from Rolling Stone gave 'Best Song Ever' a score of 4 out of 5 stars, describing the track as 'pretty irresistible'. It follows a chord progression of F♯-C♯-G♯.

The song is written in the key of C-sharp major with a tempo of 120 beats per minute.

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