Marketing for the Superbowl?

by Anthony on February 10, 2006

Google Video has published the commercials for the 2006 Superbowl up here: http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

This is great because the commercials are WAY better than the game (don’t hurt me!), but there’s also something very interesting with the Godaddy ads.

Now, Godaddy is no stranger to controversy. Their ads were pulled at the very last second from last year’s superbowl, for being too raunchy – so what did they learn from that? (We’ll cover this soon)

Well, on the google collection, there are FIVE adverts that Godaddy tried to use for superbowl. Watch them all, they’re great.

Now, it is pretty obvious to me, that the four which were denied never had a prayer of being approved. Its obvious to me, and its definitely obvious to the people who created the ads.

So why do that? Why make ads that you *know* will be rejected for being too raunchy?

Here’s why – and its great marketing

  • Godaddy, as an internet powerhouse, realize the power of the ‘net and protect that power by integrating services into their network from this website. They already show their ads to everybody. All they need to do is get people interested. All they need to do is get people interested.
  • After last year’s fuss, its easy to “oops we did it again”. They make 5 commercials, one of which they know will be accepted. The other four get denied, then everybody wants to see the ad, so they can see for themselves why it was rejected!

And personally, I really like the way they brand the ads. They use the incredibly beautiful Godaddy Girls to good effect. Its a sad fact that most of us have accepted over the years, that girls like that and the internet don’t usually mix! So Godaddy are being lighthearted, and doing funny things to the stereotype by creating a character like that to promote an internet company.

So what DID godaddy learn from last years rejection?

Easy – they learnt how powerful controversy can be. As soon as their ad was pulled, they started screaming publically about it. And the put the ad up on the internet, so that anybody could download it from the godaddy website.

After reading the recent reports made by trCREATIVE, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to find out that more people saw the ad on the internet than would have if they had shown it at the superbowl! And also, think of the demographics who would make up the superbowl audience? Its most of the country, yeah? But is that your target market? Shouldn’t one be a little more select than that when identifying an audience?

Of course one should. And Godaddy did! They kind of people who would buy a domain name, or need webhosting – well they’re the people who would here Godaddy complain about the pulled ad, and who would then jump online to see the video for themselves.

On the other hand, for those who want a complete solution to your cleaning problems. You can check out Maid Complete.

Genious! And check out Bob Parson’s Blog – he’s the founder of GoDaddy.

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