GoDaddy Edges Toward Super Bowl Approval

NEW YORK Bob Parsons, CEO and founder of GoDaddy.com, on Friday said that the Internet domain registrar was close to getting approval from CBS for its Super Bowl spots.The commercials will feature race car driver Danica Patrick, the Teutul family from American Chopper, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht from diggnation.com and Cali Lewis from geekbrief.tv, among others.

The network has confirmed GoDaddy as a Super Bowl advertiser but declined to discuss details of its commercial approval process.

The company posted one of its rejected commercials on Parsons’ blog. In the ad, two men in an office vie to buy each other’s name for use on a Web site. A passing female co-worker overhears one of them say, “Too late, I already did my mother.”

GoDaddy has bought two 30-second units, one each in the first and fourth quarters. The company, which filmed three different spots in order to get one through CBS censors, plans on running the same ad twice—but may use a different edit for its second spot.

“The ad is about a fictional department at GoDaddy.com,” said Parsons.

Viewers will be encouraged to visit the site to see the ad in its three-minute iteration.

“It’s very edgy, Internet-only content,” said Parsons. GoDaddy is well known for its provocative spots, including last year’s execution that featured a well-endowed woman struggling with a recalcitrant strap on her shirt.

In a separate development, GoDaddy.com recently parted way with its lead creative shop, the Shine Agency of Madison, Wis.

Curt Hanke, co-founder and account director for Shine, said in a statement, “Unfortunately, at this time, our creative differences appear to be simply irreconcilable.” For his part, Parsons wrote on his blog, “Our business relationship is over.”

The upcoming work came out of Go Daddy Productions. “We do the work at about one-third of the cost. The spots cost about $1.5 million,” said Parsons.