Yesterday’s Superbowl was full of great ads. Some of them very creative with very limited budgets, like Dorito’s “Crystal Ball”.
But it seems GoDaddy.com’s commercials (there were two of them) have started a backlash of users who are angry at the way that the site markets itself using women in a sleazy way.
The commercials (which I’ve attached at the end of this post) start IndyCar racer Danica Patrick, which has been an ambassador of the site for some time now.
Earlier today, GoDaddy customers organized a virtual picket sign protest on Twitter, hashing their comments with “#NoDaddy” (you can see the most recent posts here), threatening to close their accounts for GoDaddy’s non-conventional marketing.
Twitterer Mark W. Schumann has a valid point: GoDaddy could potentially be alienating half of their customer base; while Twitterer Andrew Hyde announced he had moved all of his domains out.
I asked my followers what they though about it. Bud Gibson said: ”I think the godaddy commercials focus too much on sleazy sex. Very low brow and lacking subtlety. Why does Danica associate?”
Tobias Bray concurred that this will be similar to the: ”Motrin like fallout from mommy bloggers.”
Interestingly, one of my female followers, blogger Dana Willhoit said: ”I think that GoDaddy is genius at marketing and the controversy is planned, and will only help boost sales.”
I’m personally on the fence on this one. While the commercials struck me as sleazy, and with very little creativity, I wouldn’t go ahead and move out my domains from the service because of their marketing.
That, and the fact that Network Solutions is still too expensive for me.
Also, the commericals were partial versions. If you see the full-length versions onGoDaddy’s site, you’ll see there’s a twist on them: women do get some “payback”.
Advertising has always used women as a valuable marketing tool (beer commercials anyone?), but that could be partly because I am the demo GoDaddy is apparently going for.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.
Update: Shashi Bellamkonda, Network Solution’s Social Media Guru, sent two great related blog posts my way:
- Mack Collier mentions on his blog post that Network Solutions might see this as an opportunity to get some customers their way.
- Katie Paine is calling for a ”GoMommy” hosting solution.
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