February 24, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- While Web hosting is a big business, few of its largest players have marketed their products and services through traditional media such as television, radio or print. For the most part, Web hosts have focused their efforts on search engines and other online advertising vehicles, targeting most directly the customers who are relatively Internet savvy.
However, this approach is less effective in reaching the huge untapped market of newbies and late adopters. And as it turns out, breaking with convention and going with traditional media may be the only viable way of reaching that potentially lucrative demographic.
With this in mind, Go Daddy, domain registrar and hosting company, has launched a marketing plan aimed at pushing the company's brand into the mainstream. Last December, Go Daddy said it had purchased a 30 second Super Bowl ad for $2.4 million, despite the skepticism of certain observers.
"We realized that if we were going to find a way to reach all those customers who are not aware that Go Daddy exists, we needed to try something different," Go Daddy CEO Bob Parsons wrote in his blog. "For this we decided to try traditional media, ie. television, radio, US mail and print."
After the company hired an advertising firm, a project that began as lighthearted quickly became serious business. "The more we thought about it and looked into the cost and benefits,β Parsons wrote, βit appeared to us that starting things off with the Super Bowl made quite a bit of sense indeed."
The ad was a great idea, Parsons reasoned, not just because of the approximately 150 million viewers on Super Bowl Sunday, but also because of the portion of that audience that tunes in just for the commercials, which over the years have established an audience of their own. People also tend to watch the ads in large groups, Parsons added, making recall rates higher than normal.
"Many people watch the game in groups that average a total of 6 people." Parsons wrote. "Part of the fun of watching the game is discussing each commercial amongst the group. This adds considerably to the consumer recall of each commercial. It may also be one of the key reasons the recall rate is so very high."
What began as a simple, albeit expensive, advertising campaign quickly became headline news. Just a week before the Super Bowl, Go Daddy announced that it would purchase a second Super Bowl spot. The second ad, which featured actress Candice Michelle facing a Congressional hearing, was rejected by Fox ostensibly for its questionable content. Go Daddy decided it would run its approved ad, which featured the same woman experiencing a "wardrobe malfunction' while testifying in the same Congressional setting, would run twice.
The rejection of the ad led to a wave of publicity in the week leading up to the Super Bowl that was actually just a harbinger of things to come. On Super Bowl Sunday, the second appearance of the acceptable ad was pulled. Parsons says the first ad, aired at halftime, apparently upset the National Football League, which consulted with Fox and had the second spot pulled, even though it had previously been approved by Fox's censors. Obviously, Go Daddy disagreed with the move.
"If you look at it, the girl was shot at a distance, you see nothing you don't see at a mall," Parsons told theWHIR.
In his blog, Parsons explains in detail why the ad was far from indecent, emphasizing the fact that there was absolutely no nudity whatsoever. "I am comfortable that we do nothing wrong."
After the Super Bowl, the story gained more momentum. The publicity was so extensive that The Academy Awards saw the need to announce that Go Daddy would not be advertising during its upcoming telecast. This despite the fact that Go Daddy never had any intention of doing so, says Parsons.
So was the money well spent? Unquestionably so, says Parsons. While he originally only hoped for the increased brand awareness that a Super Bowl ad would bring, the unintended consequence of the buzz surrounding the ad's rejection and subsequent cancellation resulted in exposure and publicity that far exceeded his expectations. In Parsons' estimation, the company received at least a mention in every newspaper and major TV outlet in the country and topped various Super Bowl ad polls, including Fox's. Parson's blog received over a million hits and downloads of the video on various other Web sites were viewed millions of times.
It was certainly tough to get Parsons on the phone for an interview as media outlets have been flooding Go Daddy with requests since the Super Bowl.
"From our Web site alone, the two commercials together were viewed a total of 2.6 million times. In addition to our Web site, these two commercials were also available on many other Web sites," Parsons wrote. "We estimate that the commercial was viewed at least another two and one half million or so times on these sites (and perhaps much more than this). So our message was viewed at least 5.1 million additional times after the Super Bowl."
The GoDaddy.com Web site and Parson's blog had no problem withstanding the crush of visitors, Parsons said, though many of the other sites that made the ad available did crash under the pressure. In fact, Parsons says Go Daddy bolstered its infrastructure just over three months ago with an upgrade worth $4.5 million.
The Super Bowl ads kicked off a broader Go Daddy marketing campaign that will include print and TV ads. Two new commercials are already out. And for those who can't get enough, they also feature Candice Michelle, now affectionately known as "The Go Daddy girl."
With all the fallout from the Super Bowl ad, if you hadn't heard of Go Daddy before, chances are you've heard of them now.
