Go, Daddy, Go!

Why do you watch the Super Bowl? Is it the barbaric excitement of watching men hit the living daylights out of each other? Maybe the halftime show? Well, I would argue that the most popular answer given may be that people watch it for the commercials. The Super Bowl is the most viewed television event of the entire year, and it's a landslide. Over 108 million Americans watched the Super Bowl this past February, which is incredible for the people at NBC and for the NFL as an organization, but it may be even more crucial and meaningful to the companies that are forking up the dough to run an advertisment during the game. Ad agencies frantically try, arguably too hard in some cases, to come up with THE ad that will change the name of the game. Millions of dollars are thrown into these single commercials just for the Super Bowl and why not? How many other chances do companies have to reach over 100 million people at one time, with one ad? This year there were some great ads that all got wonderful feedback but none caused quite as much of a stir than GoDaddy.com's ad, "The Kiss," featuring Bar Rafaeli and Jesse Heiman.

When I saw this commercial I was intitally shocked. My jaw slowly descended while the two awkwardly made out right in front of me. There was no background music or anything, just the awkward silence interrupted by the occassional sound of moisture exchange. Then, as if it couldn't possibly get more awkward, a close up shot of the session was presented to us. While someone that is unfamiliar with GoDaddy's prior commercials may be a bit thrown off by "The Kiss," it is not entirely out of the ordinary considering their advertising history. They are known for their simple, sexist, and controversial commercials which are magnified in the spotlight of the Super Bowl ad craze. A commercial that costs millions of dollars and also stirs up a lot of controversy does not seem to be a smart business tactic or the best use of money...or does it? Well, as they say, "numbers don't lie." The day after the commercial aired, hosting sales for GoDaddy increased 45%, domain sales went up 40%, and the company added 10,000 new customers. It is easy to rag on GoDaddy for continuously spitting out these types of ads, but if you were GoDaddy and experiencing those kinds of financial and business increases, would you stop? Heck no. If something is not broken, don't fix it. The people that are visiting the website are the ones keeping these types of ads alive. Those who are pointing the "shame on you" finger at GoDaddy may as well be pointing into a mirror.