After sitting out of the Super Bowl for the first time since 2005 last year, GoDaddy is back in the game for 2017 with a new creative agency and product.
The web-hosting company will run a humorous 30-second spot during the first half of Super Bowl 51 that will push "a new, yet-to-be-released product"—making it the first time the brand has focused its creative on a product versus the brand. After ending its relationship with TBWA\Chiat\Day earlier this year, the new work will come from Bullish, a year-old creative shop founded by Deutsch veterans Mike Duda and Brent Vartan. A rep for GoDaddy said this is the first time the brand has worked with the agency and that there will be a "formal agency relationship" announced in January.
GoDaddy is famous for its risqué Super Bowl spots, including memorable ads with supermodel Bar Rafeli, but in 2014 started shifting towards a "matured" Super Bowl strategy that promised to wipe away ads with sexual innuendos. Then in 2015, it pulled its spot featuring a golden retriever puppy after dog advocates claimed that the spot promoted "puppy mills."
In a statement, GoDaddy's CMO Barb Rechterman said that this year's spot will include messaging that will prompt people to go online to find out more about "a year-long marketing campaign revolving around the power of the internet."
"Driving viewers to the website with a digital extension is a tactic we've been using for many years, but the way we engage viewers with the 2017 digital extension won't look anything like what you've seen from us in the past," Rechterman said. "This is more than a simple brand play. This year, we're going to take viewers on a fun ride that engages them around our latest product."