Close Super Bowl puts even more eyes on late-airing ads

NEW YORK -- Late-game Super Bowl advertisers scored extra ratings points for their bucks as viewership for the cliffhanger between the New England Patriots and New York Giants surged north of 100 million.

The single most-seen ad in the game, media ratings service The Nielsen Co. reported Thursday, aired in the fourth quarter: At 9:44 p.m. ET, 103.7 million viewers watched sultry Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima flirt in lingerie.

The most-watched Super Bowl game ever, which averaged 97.4 million viewers, topped out at 112.2 million viewers at 10:02 p.m., 10 minutes before the end. The 10 most-watched ads all tallied more viewers than the game average.

"Those are staggering numbers," says Tom Ziangas, a vice president at Nielsen Sports. "The game did build viewers. It was a game that was extremely competitive, and that last quarter built to a crescendo."

Victoria's Secret was singing about its decision to create an ad for late in the game. The fourth-quarter placement was driven by the ad's theme. With Brenda Lee's I'm in the Mood for Love playing, the ad says the game will soon end and the real fun will begin (and, by the way, Valentine's Day is almost here).

The viewer totals made the average ad cost of $2.7 million for 30 seconds in the game seem reasonable.

"If people wanted to reach that many viewers across top network shows, they would need to buy at least a dozen spots," Ziangas says. "People like Victoria's Secret and Pepsi got their money's worth."