GoDaddy, ABC Contest Super Bowl Spot

Todd Wasserman/Brandweek

NEW YORK GoDaddy.com, the domain-name registry that caught flak for a risqué Super Bowl ad last year, is wrangling with ABC to get another, similar commercial approved for this year’s game.

“We still don’t know if we are going to advertise in this year’s Super Bowl,” writes GoDaddy founder and president Bob Parsons on his blog, bobparsons.com. “We’ve been busy working to get an ad approved by ABC and really haven’t had any luck.”

Parsons added that the challenge isn’t just to get a spot approved, but to get “an appropriate ‘GoDaddy-esque’ ad approved.”

In last year’s game, which Fox televised, GoDaddy ran a spot via The Ad Store, New York, that showed buxom model Candice Michelle having trouble with the straps of her blouse as she testified before a congressional committee. The network canceled a second showing of the commercial after the National Football League complained.

The ad came after a Federal Communications Commission crackdown on obscenity in media prompted by a 2004 Super Bowl halftime show in which Janet Jackson exposed her breast.

In his blog, Parsons also took issue with a report that Pepsi executives complained to Fox that GoDaddy’s ad “ruined the environment” for other ads.

“I found it more than a little interesting that a firm with a checkered history like Pepsi would hold GoDaddy accountable for its advertising,” Parsons writes, referring to past controversies with a Pepsi ad featuring controversial rapper Ludacris and sexually suggestive ads featuring Britney Spears.

A GoDaddy representative declined comment, as did reps for The Ad Store.

via adweek.com