The White House announced that the President will be drinking Bud Light at tonight’s much-publicized “Beer Summit.” Consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research shows that Bud Light is also the beer choice for politically mainstream Americans. Bud Light drinkers (ages 21+) have no distinct political profile. They are just as likely as all drinking-age Americans to consider themselves Democrat, Republican, or Independent, and are average for voting in presidential, statewide and local elections. Bud Light drinkers are also average for being registered to vote.

 * Bud Light Drinkers are adults 21+ who drank a Bud Light during the past month.

According to Nielsen’s annual report on Super Bowl advertising and overall viewing, an average of 98.7 million U.S. viewers tuned in to the game.  Almost 152 million people watched the last six minutes of the game, giving it the largest reach by a TV event ever.

Other key findings include:

• Total commercial airtime during the game was 38 minutes and 5 seconds, and 48 unique brands competed for viewers’ attention.

• The most-liked ad was Budweiser’s spot featuring a Clydesdale competing with a Dalmation in a game of fetch.  This was also the most-recalled ad of the game.  Altogether, Anheuser-Busch produced three of the most recalled ads.

• Emotional and feel-good ads from Budweiser and Pedigree resounded with women, while med tended to like humorous commercials from Pepsi and Doritos.

• Locally, Pittsburgh had the #1 Metered Market performance with a 53.5 household rating, while Phoenix was #9 with a 47.5 household rating.

Nielsen’s complete press release about its annual report on Super Bowl advertising and viewing with more detailed stats and data can be viewed here.

View commercials, storyboards, and ratings from the Super Bowl since 1999, via Monitor Plus.

Hybrid Ads include customized ads, branded promos, vignettes, interstitials, and micro-series where sponsor messaging is combined with program or entertainment content.

Recall refers to the percentage of television viewers who can recall, within 24 hours, a hybrid ad’s sponsor.

A hybrid ad’s “recall score” is the percentage of television viewers who can recall, within 24 hours, the sponsor of a hybrid ad they were exposed to during the normal course of viewing primetime TV on broadcast and major cable networks.

Recall scores are indexed against the mean score for all new hybrid ads during the time period to calculate an ad’s “recall index.”

A recall index of 100 indicates average recall.  A recall index of 279, for example, means that a hybrid ad has proven to be about 2.8 times as memorable as the average new hybrid ad during the four-week time period.