Go Daddy’s Ad is “Most-Watched” – Last-Minute Gamble to Buy NBC’s Final Slot Pays Off
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Go Daddy, the world’s dominant Web hosting domain registrar, earned the coveted crown of “Most Watched” Super Bowl commercial this year, according to TiVo, Inc.1
This means Go Daddy’s fourth-quarter spot had far more viewership than any other commercial in the most-watched Super Bowl of all time. Remarkable when you consider Go Daddy purchased NBC’s final ad slot two days before the broadcast.
“Our gamble paid off – in spades,” said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons, who has steered the company’s highly successful and historic Super Bowl campaigns since their 2005 debut.
The eleventh-hour ad buy was a tremendous risk because had the game been a blow out, fewer people might have been watching. An estimated 98.7 million average viewers, in the U.S. alone, watched this year’s Super Bowl, according to Nielsen data.
Go Daddy’s “Baseball” ad, also called “Enhancement,” aired in the two-minute warning break, which came just after Arizona took over the lead, and right before Pittsburgh came from behind to win what’s being called one of the greatest Super Bowl games in history.
The GoDaddy-esque commercial features Danica Patrick and her “enhanced” Go Daddy Web site, along with a variety of buxom women showing off their own “enhancements” in a spoof of baseball’s steroids scandal.
The commercial was condemned as being “lower than Go Daddy’s usual low,” by AdWeek critic Barb Lippert. Two television networks refused to air “Baseball” last month, saying it was “too racy for morning television.” Some of the nation’s largest newspapers even elected to ignore the ad in their post-game reviews. Still, viewers and potential customers clearly wanted to see the commercial, again and again.
“When the critics panned our ad, I knew we had a winner! Now, it is official, the people have spoken… in a way that really counts…with their remotes and, more importantly, their wallets,” Parsons said referencing a huge lift in Go Daddy’s sales numbers.
Go Daddy, unofficially, has two commercial winners. For the first time in five years, Go Daddy aired two different commercials in the Super Bowl. The other also starred Danica Patrick and featured her in a shower with another woman. Both “Shower” and “Baseball” invited viewers to see the continued stories online at GoDaddy.com.
The ads each recorded dramatic spikes in the Super Bowl’s Internet traffic, as documented by Akamai.
“In all seriousness, the best ‘win’ for Go Daddy this year is the boost in business generated by both our commercials,” Parsons beamed. “When you get right down to it, advertising is all about driving sales, right?”
On Super Bowl Sunday, Go Daddy set company records for new customers and total orders.
To find out how you can get online quickly and without spending a lot of money, visit, www.GoDaddy.com.
To see all of Go Daddy’s Super Bowl commercials, or the Internet-Only extended versions, visit Videos.GoDaddy.com.
About The Go Daddy Group, Inc.
Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and Web site design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce Web site hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group, Inc., has more than 33 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world’s No. 1 domain name registrar, according to Name Intelligence, Inc. GoDaddy.com is also rated the world’s largest hostname provider, according to Netcraft Ltd. During 2008, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.
1 Determination made based on an aggregated, anonymous, second-by-second audience measurement about how TiVo subscribers watched the broadcast.
