GoDaddy or NoDaddy?

                Alright so I’m pretty confident that most of if not everyone who watched the Super Bowl this year (and honestly those who didn’t) has at least heard of this “advertisement”.  I use the word advertisement quite lightly here.  Yes it got our attention, and yes it got plenty of social media buzz.  But seriously, did it really do anything for the product?  Of course you could say well they did get in a quick tidbit about their service; selling website domains for small businesses in a sleek way.  No one remembers that though, no buzz was generated over the actual service.  So what really happened with this ad?

Here’s the deal.  We all know GoDaddy.com uses sex appeal in its advertising.  It does a good job of getting attention (specifically from the male audience), however, just getting attention doesn’t sell anything.  This whole ad is just going from iffy to ridiculous.  I really doubt anyone wants to watch two people making out during a commercial.  More importantly, I’m tired of people who say if it had been two different individuals the ad would be less controversial.  Look, I don’t care who the two people are being filmed.  Whether they are both perfect examples of Greek beauty, two examples of not so much Greek beauty, or any kind of mix and match of the two…I don’t want to see two people making out with tongue during a commercial.  What’s the point of even showing this ad? It got almost every audience member upset; from the younger generations to the older ones.  Attention can only go so far.  There has to be some sort of substance behind your message. Get my attention, but do something useful with it.

Don’t get me wrong, a little controversy can be a great thing.  Fight an existing norm, generate some new buzz, maybe even change the world one 30sec spot at a time.  But a shock value attention strategy is useless if that’s the only aspect you remember.  Where’s the message? The thought? Even for a brand known for sexual appeal, this was just awful.