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GoDaddy.com
Much has been made over the GoDaddy.com Super Bowl ad, featuring an impossibly-huge-chested woman going before an FCC-like committee to demonstrate her idea for a Super Bowl ad. They originally bought two spots but their second ad was rejected by Fox, so they agreed to show the same ad twice during the game (read all about it at the company founder's weblog). However, rather than airing the ad a second time, Fox showed a promo for The Simpsons.
Rumors are flying about why the ad was pulled. GoDaddy blames the NFL for calling Fox and making them pull the ad (Fox, remember, has shows about wife-swapping and plastic surgery. Any given promo for one of these shows is infinitely more offensive than GoDaddy's ad), but I wouldn't be surprised if GoDaddy themselves paid off Fox to pretend to pull it the second time around.
In a year of incredibly tame, lame Super Bowl ads, GoDaddy was the one company to take a chance and it is paying off for them in a ginormous amount of free publicity (including this very post). The buzz is only magnified by the rumors of the crusty NFL pulling the plug, and completely overshadows the fact that no one knows what, if anything, GoDaddy.com does.
I'll save you a trip to their horribly busy website and tell you that they are yet another entrant in the sea of companies that will sell you a domain name and host your site. That makes this post 10 times as informative as the ad, which is the real complaint rather than whether it was too "racy". Have we as a society really sunk so low that people waste their time complaining about an attractive woman on television? I guess these are the same people that camp out at the Michael Jackson trial with the "Free Jacko" signs and beg for his autograph. It's time for some folks to get a job.
Comments
Apparently you were too distracted by the busty girl to actually *listen* to the ad. She explicity states that GoDaddy.com is a hosting company, and even talks about their prices.
Posted by: light at February 11, 2005 6:34 PM
If you can find on ifilms where they show all the super bowl ads, You'll find that Godaddy.com isn't the only spot that was pulled. There was a small company that had a Mickey Rooney towel-drop sequence. They, however, were cut early on. (After seeing the ad... I could see where people would either laugh or really, really complain.)
The problem is- the right to free speech is hindered every time that somebody complains about an ad that shocks. Someone complains- which does bring press, and then Fox gets fined. (Because, apparently, after something "offensive" is aired, it is reviewed. There's no nipping in the bud outside of what Fox chooses.) So Fox tightens their boundaries.
and- er- light has a point. She does talk a bit about the prices and site. (...don't hurt me...)
Posted by: Moueska at February 12, 2005 1:40 PM
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