(RNS) Focus on the Family’s Super Bowl ad featuring star quarterback Tim Tebow may have gotten a lot of press but left many viewers with “confusion regarding the commercial’s meaning and sponsor,” according to a leading Christian research firm.

“The downside from the standpoint of the commercial’s sponsors is sure to be that the main message and organization behind the ad were lost to a majority of viewers,” said David Kinnamon, president of the California-based Barna Group.

According to a poll based on 1,001 telephone interviews, including the night of the Super Bowl, when asked to describe the main message of the commercial, one in five viewers could not venture a guess; 38 percent described it as an anti-abortion; and 19 percent said it was about being “pro-family” or “expressing that family is important.”

The remaining answers included: “reminding people that miracles happen and Tim Tebow was a miracle baby,” “stressing the importance of the parent-child relationship,” “asking people to visit the sponsor’s Web site,” or “helping people think about health care issues.”

The ad generated controversy before it ever aired after CBS shifted its policy to allow an advocacy ad. Abortion-rights groups said the Super Bowl was an inappropriate venue for a hot-topic issue like abortion.

Not only was the message unclear, the commercial’s sponsor was also lost to most viewers. While 78 percent could not identify the organization behind the Tebow ad, only 14 percent correctly stated Focus on the Family. Six percent guessed some other organization or group, and 3 percent remembered the name of the campaign, “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.”

“On the positive side, it was widely viewed and remarkably well-received, even among those who hold fundamental differences of opinion on abortion with the pro-life sponsors, Focus on the Family,” Kinnamon said.

More than 106 million Americans gathered around the television on Feb. 7, making Super Bowl XLIV the most watched program in American history, according to the Nielsen Company.

Nielsen found that the Tebow-Focus ad — estimated to cost some $2.5 million — had the least amount of viewers out of all the Super Bowl commercials, at 92.6 million.

The Barna survey found nearly four out of every five viewers (78 percent) “felt the commercial presented a positive message.” Additionally, 75 percent overall “claimed that the commercial was appropriate to show during the Super Bowl,” according to the analysis. Even among viewers who support abortion rights, two-thirds felt it was appropriate for the Super Bowl. Only 10 percent of abortion-rights supporters found the commercial offensive, and 4 percent said it caused them to “personally reconsider their opinions about abortion.”

The Barna poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.