• by Wayne Friedman , February 6, 2012

The best-retained Super Bowl commercials for TV viewers? No surprises here. It came moments before the last play of the game.

The last four commercials before the end of the game -- the Hail-Mary pass of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady into the end-zone, the last play of the game, according to Rentrak Corp. -- scored the highest results.

The beneficiaries included spots for Cadillac, History Channel's "Swamp People," GoDaddy.com, and an NBC promo for new show "Awake."

According to Rentrak, those messages hit the highest retention index numbers of the entire night -- 109%, 109%, 110%, and 110%, respectively. The game started with a 89% retention index with the Bud Light Premium commercial, and the numbers built throughout the evening.

Rentrak's Ad Retention Index (ARI) looks at the second-by-second viewing average for commercials and compares them to the average viewership for an entire program.

According to Rentrak's database of 19 million televisions, the average ad delivered 98.4% of the audience when compared to viewership of the entire game.

Rentrak says the Super Bowl ad exposure was nearly equal to viewership of the entire game, although many of the spots from major sponsors like Acura (Seinfeld/Leno), Honda (Ferris Bueller spoof) and Volkswagen (dog shape up/Star Wars) premiered online prior to Sunday's big game.