GoDaddy is quickly becoming famous for its provocative, sexual ads displayed on the Super Bowl each year. This is GoDaddy’s fifth consecutive year in the Super Bowl, and according to many sources, the millions of dollars spent, is well paying off.
According to an article by Ad Age, Godaddy’s estimated value from the publicity of the 2008 commercial (that was never aired) was $11.7 million. In fact the CEO, Bob Parsons, says “The day before we ran our first ad in 2005, our market share of new-domain registrations was 16%”. The week after the first Super Bowl ad, it increased to 25%. He states that “the next year, it moved from 25% to 32%. We had a nice bump every game. Right now, we are at 46% worldwide”. A lot of this traffic is probably generated due to GoDaddy’s call to action at the end of their commercials which invites viewers to view the full “uncensored” ad online at www.godaddy.com.
Also, this chart shows that users are actively searching online for the commercials, even after the game is over. Clearly, GoDaddy is doing a good job when it comes to generating buzz and brand awareness.
But it still leaves me to ask one question – Aren’t most domain-buyers business owners? Wouldn’t they find these ads offensive or unprofessional?
Well, personally, I think the ads turn me off to the brand and I find them a little disgusting – but that really doesn’t matter because I clearly don’t fit into their target audience. Most would agree that the ad is targeted to young, male adults, even though according to this article, 2 out of 3 women who went to GoDaddy’s website “loved” the ad. However, I think the numbers are slightly irrelevant since the survey was taken on GoDaddy’s website, and clearly anyone who took the trouble to go to their website to watch the ad there, obviously had some interest in the commercial.
Although GoDaddy seems to do a good job at gaining interest immediately after the Super Bowl it seems like they need to work on keeping it after the game-talk dies down. According to Google Trends, there is always a huge spike in activity for the brand at the beginning of the year near the time of the Super Bowl, however, it quickly fades away for the remaining months.
Also, I find that GoDaddy’s ad is becoming slightly repetitive. Every year you have a hot girl, taking her shirt off and something with a court room, and an old man being unable to breathe. It seems to still have an effect, but every good thing comes to an end, and soon their viewers are bound to become bored with the same concept and desire something new. According to a survey done by Ad Age, 85% of viewers said that they are sick of seeing the same ads over and over. In the article, someone commented that “anything that irritates the consumer in today’s environment increased control over media is exacerbating the likelihood commercials will be skipped entirely”.
This leads me to my conclusion, that the question isn’t whether or not the ads are working – they clearly are. The real question is how much longer can GoDaddy keep up this pattern of increased-business year after year because of the Super Bowl? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see….
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February 3, 2009 at 10:38 pm |
There’s no such thing as bad PR… Or so they say… The commercials generate buzz so I guess they’re effective. But I’m old school and they do turn me off… mostly as I think they reflect a man in his Mid-life crisis. It’s almost embarrassing now to say I have use their service… The commercials are obvious and not even clever… It’s almost like Sex for Sex’s sake…
It’s unfortunate because the service is actually quite good if you develop sites… I started using them before I ever saw a Superbowl ad though…
February 3, 2009 at 11:00 pm |
I agree with you 100%. Sometimes the success of certain types of advertising makes me sick!
February 5, 2009 at 4:40 pm |
That is a hard thing about marketing – TASTE –
I varies from person to person and in age. So look at the demographics on actually who watches the games, and what are they usually pick up on the quickest? SEX!!!! Trust me guys all over were talking about that commercial the next day at work, just enforcing brand awareness.
Marketing will change very little to the fact that sex sells. Even to women. They would rather see Fabio (put any mucular guy’s name here) in a commercial that Michael Moore.
I too was caught off guard with children watching and they should have thought about it, but they do not care because there are more 14-45 year old men watching that 5-12 year old boys.
February 5, 2009 at 10:57 pm |
I read that Google Trends data very differently. You say the buzz died down, which is true to an extent, but you are also looking at a volume increase of more than 100%+ year over year for several years running. Any company would be overjoyed to show such numbers. I would say the creatively bereft GoDaddy effort has been a solid performer if traffic is our primary metric.
Also, as far as offending people, most corporate domain purchases will be handled by the IT group, filled with 18-35 year old men. I doubt they are particularly concerned about the image GoDaddy portrays.
February 6, 2009 at 10:44 pm |
Judy,
As a woman, I absolutely find it disgusting, but Craig is right…if Go Daddy is concerned with the 18-35 year old men, then they are really catering to them.
Very interesting post. Rock on, girl.
Dali Burgado
February 9, 2009 at 3:52 am |
Although it might be a good option to attract people’s attention but I don’t believe that it much help in gaining some more customers yo “go daddy”.