Smarter Utility

[May 30, 2010]

Keep Your Shirt On: Go Daddy Unveils Commercial Contest Winner

When you think of GoDaddy-esque ads, you typically think fun, edgy and slightly inappropriate… Today the $100,000 winner in Go Daddy's user-generated commercial contest was revealed, and it sports a surprising new advertising approach for the world's largest Web hosting and domain name provider: "cleavage-free."

"Go Momma" was unveiled as Go Daddy's winning commercial during today's Indianapolis 500 broadcast. The winning ad team watched from Hollywood as their first-ever commercial creation aired in the winning slot. Tonight, they are six figures richer and possibly on their way to exciting advertising careers.

The commercial features a mom who creates a website with Go Daddy in order to save time and still keep in touch with her family. In the thirty-second story, she posts her cherished family recipes on her website, even though she's not tech savvy. The "family story" is a far cry from Go Daddy's usual "sassy sell," a tried-and-true approach that landed the web company in advertising textbooks.

"We're thrilled!" said first-time commercial producer Jessie Ottolini. "This was our very first attempt at making a commercial for our director, composer, writer and me."

No word on how they'll spend the $100,000, but "Go Momma" is expected to air again nationally tomorrow during the Stanley Cup Playoff Finals and on ESPN's (News - Alert) SportsCenter.

"The whole idea of our contest was to have fun and see how creative the Internet community could be with the Go Daddy story - and the entries literally blew us away!" said Go Daddy CEO and founder Bob Parsons (News - Alert), who has been the mastermind behind Go Daddy's amazingly successful SuperBowl ad campaigns since 2005. "We received some fantastic commercials and had so many outstanding entries, we ended up adding five Honorable Mention winners late in the contest."

The contest was launched on Super Bowl Sunday and drew more than 500 entries.

Second prize went to an ad titled "Finger Fighting." The commercial, shot on-location in Ariz., tells a 'rags-to-riches' story about a blue-collar everyman who creates an e-commerce website and becomes a millionaire. Jae Staats and his crew earned $50,000 for the runner-up title.

Third prize paid $25,000 and went to "Get Online Rap," which featured an original musical rap about using the Internet to boost a business.

Five Honorable Mention winners will receive $15,000, raising the prize winnings to $250,000, which makes Go Daddy's "Create Your Own Commercial" contest the highest guaranteed payout of any commercial contest in advertising history.

When it came to picking the winners, Parsons invited Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick to help judge, then used the Go Daddy-sponsored Indy 500 broadcast as a stage to reveal the winning ads. Danica was driving the Go Daddy #7 car for Andretti Autosport in the legendary Indy 500 today as the contest winners were aired on national television. "I was very impressed with what these people were able to do with an idea and a video camera," Danica said after judging the contest. "People really do seem to understand the key to Go Daddy's success too - making it easy and affordable to create a website."

Parsons is looking forward to measuring the ads' impact on Go Daddy's bottom line as he considers launching another contest.

To see the winning commercials, the top picks selected by the public via online voting and the favorites picked by NASCAR drivers Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt, Jr., visit www.GoDaddy.com/contest.

For domain names, websites and everything in between, visit www.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 40 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 2009, 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.

- The Go Daddy Group -
Copyright © 2010 GoDaddy.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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