GoDaddy Going A Different Direction With Danica Patrick Super Bowl Commercial
Domain peddling king GoDaddy.com, the longtime purveyors of PG-13 advertising smut, has been a Super Bowl commercial staple since their first ad premiered during Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.
The memorable spot put the company on the map in a big way, which is probably why they haven’t strayed far from their formula success since then. You don’t mess with success, right?
In 2007, race car driver Danica Patrick was brought on as a GoDaddy girl and starred in a series of increasingly provocative commercials. With each new spot trying way too hard to top the year’s prior.
The obvious goal in bringing Patrick on was to capitalize on her enormous fame and reveal just enough skin on television that the vague promise of more online would compel dullards to seek it out after the game.
And even though they never deliver on that promise, apparently it’s worked. “Wait. Where are the naked women? Oh, there aren’t any. I guess I’ll stick around and buy an internet domain anyway. Ya know…while I’m here.”
One man’s broken promise and flawed logic is, apparently, another man’s golden opportunity to start that terrible sports blog he’s always dreamt of. Only to abandon that dream three weeks later, never to revisit it again.
This particular brand of advertising has always worked better for GoDaddy than it has for Danica Patrick. Her involvement in these commercials have been a major contributing factor to the prevailing perception that she’s better at selling herself than driving a car.
Whether that’s true or not is a matter of much debate, but one thing we know for sure is that Patrick has been the cornerstone of GoDaddy’s advertising for so long that she’s become synonymous with the brand; increasing her worth exponentially, not to mention her bargaining position.
Which could explain the sharp, sudden turn in tone for their upcoming Super Bowl spot. This past October, company CEO Blake Irving promised that “2014 marks a new era for GoDaddy,” and—from the looks of a recently publicized photo from the set of the shoot—it seems he was telling the truth.
It’s hard to imagine Patrick’s desire to be taken seriously in her sport, particularly since making the leap to NASCAR in 2012, hasn’t been a major contributing factor in the company’s decision to turn over a new leaf. And if that’s the case, she should be commended.
After being relegated to supporting roles in the GoDaddy Super Bowl spots last January, Patrick looks to return as the star of the show in 2014. Donning a hilariously lifelike muscleman suit, she looks surprisingly at home among a bevy of meatheads—exactly what she wants.
Patrick has long since distinguished herself as a marketing juggernaut, now all she wants to do is fit in with the boys and make some headlines for what she does inside her car. As opposed to how she looks in a bikini, sprawled out on top of it.
So what else can viewers look forward to from GoDaddy during Super Bowl XLVII? Well, their chief marketing officer, Barb Rechterman, recently told USA Today to expect “super-smart, successful small-business” owning females.
A welcome change of pace, if you ask me, and one that is long overdue.
