(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Domain registrar and web hosting provider Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com) revealed this week that the company’s latest commercial was rejected over the weekend after airing once during NBC’s US Open broadcast.
The 30-second ad titled “Speeding” features IndyCar racer Danica Patrick in a vintage Ford Mustang.
The ad debuted in May during an ABC broadcast of an Indy 500 race. Shortly after the broadcast, Go Daddy reported that the tv spot boosted Go Daddy’s website traffic by 163 percent compared to last year.
Go Daddy says that NBC representatives, who have refused to take calls from Go Daddy’s communication staff, pulled the ad as to not “insult” Lexus.
However, Lexus says that NBC made an independent decision to block Go Daddy’s approved ad.
Late Friday, NBC told Go Daddy that it could not air the ad on Saturday or Sunday because, as the exclusive broadcast sponsor of the US Open, Japanese automaker Lexus did not want competitor commercials or even commercials with other vehicles in them.
Lexus said on Wednesday that it did not directly ask NBC to pull the Go Daddy ad and that the network made the call on its own.
“I’m not sure what’s going on between NBC and Lexus,” says Go Daddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons. “It’s ridiculous to think the network would have us scramble for a replacement ad without even checking with their sponsor. The point is NBC knows Lexus would prefer that people watching the United States Open didn’t see or even think about the United States automakers.”
Historically, Go Daddy has benefited from a certain amount of controversy surrounding their ad campaigns.
Whether or not NBC’s move to pull the ad will draw the kind of controversy that Go Daddy claims it has remains to be seen.
This is the first time that a Go Daddy ad has been pulled because of a product contained in the ad, although many of the company’s ads have been rejected in the past by network censors for containing inappropriate content.
Go Daddy’s Super Bowl ads, in particular, have had a long history of being rejected since its debut in 2005.
