Go Daddy's advertising

Go Daddy[1] is by far the largest domain name registrar in business, selling Internet addresses ending in .com, .net and many others. They also offer many associated services such as domain hosting. They have a long standing practice of extremely high profile sexualised and sexist advertising.

Wikipedia has an extensive description of their marketing, some excerpts follow:

Go Daddy's advertising is produced in-house, and typically contains sexually suggestive material... CEO Bob Parsons refers to the marketing as "GoDaddy-esque" which he describes as "fun, edgy and a bit inappropriate." Most of Go Daddy's early TV ads starred former WWE Diva Candice Michelle, in some sort of sexual-related theme... ... Go Daddy was the presenting sponsor of the Indianapolis 500 race broadcast on ABC. Go Daddy also debuted a new commercial called "Speeding" during the Indy 500. The commercial features Danica Patrick getting pulled over for speeding by a female cop wanting to be a "Go Daddy Girl."... The [Go Daddy Super Bowl XLIII] commercials featured Go Daddy Girl and IndyCar Series driver Danica Patrick. In "Shower," Danica takes a shower with Simona Fusco Stratten as three college students control the women's maneuvers from a computer... Go Daddy posted Internet-only versions of its commercials during the game. These are extended versions with more risque content... Go Daddy had hoped to broadcast a spot called "Exposure" [during Super Bowl XLII] featuring Go Daddy Girl Danica Patrick and animatronics beavers. But Fox deemed the spot too racy for prime time television and told Parsons it would not air it unless he removed the word "beaver." Parsons refused, and Go Daddy instead aired a completely different commercial, called "Spot On." The spot was essentially an "Ad to an Ad," and told viewers to go to the company's website to see "Exposure."

Responses

• "I do think it’s a problem when it’s only women being sexualized... Demographic targeting does not have to aggressively exclude everyone outside that demographic, but these ads practically scream, 'Look, if you’re not obsessed with boobies, gigglesnort, we just don’t want your business.'" The Hathor Legacy
• "That is why I get really irritated with Danica Patrick’s decision to play into GoDaddy’s misogynistic marketing campaign. Here is a women who broke into a man’s sport, something that few women have ever done... Indy racing is actually quite difficult as it requires extreme concentration and endurance. GoDaddy could be highlighting her training and story, but instead, they’d rather slap her in a shower with another woman." Michelle's Blog
• "... in addition to being gross, sexist, raunchy, and tasteless, the advertisement is also pointless and unfunny. And to the point, they’ve just offended half of their market base. While women lag behind men statistically in other tech professions, there is a more equal ratio of women to men in the Internet-related industry than any other branch of IT." Northland Digital Agency