Despite this growing female audience, 35 percent of the commercials are still targeted towards male viewers. In fact, during the 2008 Super Bowl telecast, men generally seemed to have enjoyed the commercials more than women.

According to Nielsen, approximately 25 percent of all commercials were “better liked” by men than by women; about 7 percent were “better liked” by women than by men, and the rest were “gender neutral.” Even during the various entertainment awards shows – where advertisers presumably make a concerted effort to to target women viewers – these proportions are about the same.

The most popular commercials among male viewers that aired during the 2008 Super Bowl were Bud Light’s “ability to breathe fire” and cavemen spots, Audi’s “Godfather”-themed spot, Victoria’s Secret, GoDaddy.com, and Tide’s “to go” spot featuring “the talking stain.”

Among female viewers, popular commercials included eTrade’s baby spot, T-Mobile’s spot featuring basketball star Charles Barkley announcing he’s added fellow hoopster Dwayne Wade to his favorite “five” on his mobile phone, and CareerBuilder.com, featuring a woman whose heart pops out of her chest.

At The Tailgate… Pass The Wine?

While football fans are known for their love of beer and chips, Nielsen data suggests that more fans are developing a taste for wine. In fact, avid NFL fans spent 14 percent more on wine in 2007* than in 2006, outpacing the U.S. growth in wine by 14 percent.

Also, spending on skin care products (which includes but is not limited to acne remedies, face cleansers, and hand & body lotions) by the average avid NFL fan increased 19 percent from 2005 to 2007:

• During 2007, head of households who identified themselves as avid NFL fans purchased $36.10 in skin care, an increase of $2.30 from 2006 and $5.70 from 2005. This resulted in total sales in the category reaching 1.3 billion – up 23 percent from 2006.
• Overall, avid NFL fans outpaced total U.S. spending in skin care by 74 percent from 2005 to 2007.

*Latest database available. 2008 information to be released in February 2009

Read Nielsen’s complete pre-Super Bowl report.

In August, videos at JohnMcCain.com attracted more female than male viewers for the first time, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.

Women accounted for 58% of all unique video viewers on John McCain’s website last month — up from July and June, when they made up 48% and 37% of unique video viewers on the site.

The increase in women video viewers at JohnMcCain.com came during the same month that McCain selected Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate.

Barack Obama’s website drew consistently large percentages of women video viewers during the summer months, according to Nielsen. In August, 63% of all unique video viewers on BarackObama.com were women.

Video streams at BarackObama.com increased 155% in August — up from 502,000 streams in July to 1.3 million last month. During the same time period, the number of unique video viewers on Obama’s site increased 173% — from 302,000 in July to 824,000 in August, the month of the Democratic National Convention.

Video viewing at JohnMcCain.com also showed modest increases in August, according to Nielsen. Video streams grew by 16% over the previous month — from one million streams in July to 1.2 million in August. Meanwhile unique video viewers on McCain’s site increased 5% — from 452,000 viewers in July to 475,000 in August.

Most overall online video metrics, including unique video viewers, total video streams, and streams per viewer, were either flat or down slightly from July to August, according to Nielsen. Time spent per person viewing online video increased nearly 8% from July to August.

View the full press release.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Silicon Alley Insider.