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I didn't watch much of the Super Bowl, but my husband called me in to watch the GoDaddy ads; I have several domains registered through the company, and they were ... memorable. It was of little surprise that, as soon as I reacted in horror to the courtroom advertisement in which a woman, with obvious breast enhancements, shows the court a little too much of her cleavage, I started seeing the "tweets" from dozens of the people I follow on Twitter. Those who weren't already divested of GoDaddy claimed outrage, and began to wonder if they should pull their domains.This morning, I watched in amazement as "#nodaddy" became a trending topic on Twitter. Not only were both men and women in equal numbers angry about the misogynistic ad, but people were actually changing their domain registrar; a difficult process that can take hours of waiting on hold. A list of GoDaddy alternatives was making the rounds; no one at all was suggesting they'd buy a domain from the company because of salacious excitement.
Naturally, the Twitter audience is likely already familiar with the company, so the simple name recognition play the company continues to chase wouldn't work with the million-strong "niche." But perhaps this niche is also the sort which registers domain names in enough quantities to affect the company's sales; in my opinion, it was an attention-getter that went so far over the edge, sales are now hurtling toward a chasm. (Here is a chart of gains and losses in top domain companies; tomorrow's figures will be telling, but for now, losses nearly equal gains, whereas they are usually about half.) Whether or not GoDaddy survives the firestorm of negative opinion, one thing is certain: we now know where the line is. Also, women both watch football, and register domain names, and future ad companies might do well to remember this.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-02-2009 @ 9:51PM
Smoke_Dawg_187 said...
People complain about the dumbest shit.
2-02-2009 @ 10:32PM
trevortca said...
WAHHH! Why don't you cry about it. It's 2009 people.
2-02-2009 @ 10:51PM
Beltway Greg said...
The most tasteless ad ever was the Budweiser ad in which the anthropromorphisized (sp.) beasts pay homage to the World Trade Center.
Danica Patrick understands sexism. She is, after all, one of the few women in a predominately male pursuit and if she can have a sense of humor about it I can have a sense of humor about it.
All kidding aside I'd still like to see her beaver. Sarah, learn to take a joke or take a cab out of town.
Beltway Greg
2-02-2009 @ 10:53PM
john said...
"losses nearly equal gains, whereas they are usually about half" ...also, "women watch football" - sarah, your writing is superb, and so very, very convincing.
2-02-2009 @ 11:02PM
JH said...
Haha, this made me laugh, although I'd have to say that before their notorious sexploitation ads I'd put godaddy's online account/domain management tools as most annoying. Their system is cluttered with house ads and unnecessary steps trying to upsell you to all sorts of add-ons and hosting services that aren't really that compelling (their hosted apps aren't great and lag behind even free services like Google Apps). Their bread-and-butter is domains and SSL certs, they need to strip away the crap!
I guess all the weird add-ons like domain privacy (anonymized WHOIS records) and domain protection (what is this exactly?) are money in the bank for them, because they're basically costless, but it's all so distracting.
I googled for transferring domains from godaddy and happened to find this random site blogging about it *during* the super bowl!
http://lyncd.com/2009/02/transfer-domains-godadd/
The good news is you don't have to wait on the phone for hours (like canceling an AOL account), you can do it in a few minutes thru the web. I guess it's a good sign for the company they don't make it too hard ... they will have totally jumped the shark if they ever go the AOL route and do anything to stop account churn.
2-02-2009 @ 11:08PM
Iridium said...
I don't understand why anyone would register through GoDaddy. There are far better serivces out there that cost you a lot less.
The twits that register with GoDaddy are the same ones who love this ad and the Doritos one.
2-03-2009 @ 4:58AM
Angel Reyes said...
This is ridiculous to complain about. If godaddy.com has been anything, they have been consistent with their sexual advertising. For the ones that are switching because of their super bowl commercial, this is dumb, they advertised like this before you signed up and will continue after you leave. Its what has worked for them.