Which Super Bowl XLVI team is winning the online competition? According to Nielsen and NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, it might be a draw: the New England Patriots had more visitors on their team’s website, but the New York Giants have more buzz on social media.

While Super Bowl ads require a substantial investment, they get a measurable bump from their prominent placement. According to Nielsen, ads that aired during 2011’s Super Bowl XLV were, on average, 58 percent more memorable than commercials airing during regular programming in the first quarter of 2011.

Celebrities brought out their best on the red carpet for the 83rd Annual Academy Awards and they made their mark in the commercials too. The Nielsen Company analyzed the Top Recalled Ads that aired in this year’s show, and four of them included celebrities.

Web hosting site GoDaddy.com saw the largest lift in post-Super Bowl traffic, with a 41% increase in unique U.S. visitors during the week following the game compared to the week before.

Record numbers of African American, Hispanic and female viewers helped propel Super Bowl XLV to become the most-watched television program of all time.

The Super Bowl is perhaps the most important marketing event of the year, as its popularity applies to the commercials as much as the game. In that respect, auto makers were the real winners of this year’s Bowl.

According to preliminary results from The Nielsen Company, last night’s broadcast of Super Bowl XLV on FOX had an average audience of 111 million viewers, making it the most watched television program of all time.

With sold out ad inventory for this year’s Super Bowl and such a diverse and massive pack of consumers expected to tune in, which advertisers stand the best chance of capturing the audience and getting the greatest return on their investment?

The great majority of U.S. households – 9 out of 10 – tell Nielsen they will be watching Super Bowl XLV at home or at a friend’s or relative’s house instead of watching it from a restaurant or bar.

Last year’s Super Bowl was the most watched TV program in U.S. history. With 106.5 million viewers, the game supplanted the long-time leading final episode of M*A*S*H (which had 105.5 million viewers in 1983). Will this year’s NFL championship game beat the record again?