In the aftermath of the Super Bowl, you may be wondering if the GoDaddy commercials paid off. According to a carefully worded press release, over 60% of people polled “loved” the Shower commercial, starring Danica Patrick. In Shower, Danica Patrick and another woman are controlled by three teenage boys to share a shower together. The lead-in twist that you can only see on GoDaddy.com (spoiler alert) is that the women somehow take control of the boys, and cause one to smack another. Way to go, women’s empowerment. GoDaddy mentioned that 2 out of 3 women who viewed the ad voted favorably for it. I’m sure Susan B. Anthony and others who fought for a woman’s right to vote didn’t have this in mind.
Although I’m skeptical that any woman loved these ads, I will say that the retributive twist is a semi-satisfying ending. It certainly is much improved over the Baseball commercial, with an entire slew of buxom women tearing off their shirts and saying, “Go Daddy!” It’s not a good feeling to see a web host demean women and men in such a way to boost sales.
Domain.com, a hopeful registrar with a great domain name, released its own response to GoDaddy’s inappropriate ads. On a list of reasons why they choose not to have a Super Bowl ad, Domain.com says, “Women buy domain names too.” I couldn’t have said it any better. In this economy, no company can afford to offend any demographic. Women are involved in purchasing domain names, and securing hosting. The internet is not an all-boy’s club.
GoDaddy doesn’t seem to understand that their chauvinistic ads alienate women. They seem to rely on questionable data, such as demographic polls under the tasteless videos. It should be noted that GoDaddy did not disclose poll opinions on the Baseball ad. The main difference between the two ads is that “Shower” slightly empowers women, and “Baseball” totally objectifies them.
GoDaddy also forgot to mention in their press release that a lot of their current customers are boycotting them and taking their business elsewhere. Twitter, also known as the pulse of the internet community, is filled with customers who found the GoDaddy ads to be in poor taste. It’s also abuzz with many GoDaddy alternatives, especially NameCheap and Network Solutions. It would be interesting to see how many people retain their service with GoDaddy after these Super Bowl ads, and how many of them are women.
