• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, February 2, 2006

GoDaddy.com President Bob Parsons said he expects his company's efforts to run a Super Bowl ad will fail. ABC has rejected 13 versions and the Feb. 1 deadline for approval has passed, Parsons said--although he's prepared to wait through today and perhaps beyond for a green light.

Although details of the GoDaddy spot are under wraps, Parsons said it will be edgy and provocative, but no more so than a Pizza Hut spot with Jessica Simpson (already cleared to air) and the NFL cheerleaders on the sidelines. "We're being singled out unfairly," Parsons said in a news conference yesterday.

The flamboyant Parsons added that he believes the issue is no longer with ABC Sports or the network's standards and practices group. Instead, he suggested it may be with top brass at ABC, or even parent company Disney. Previously, he had suggested that the NFL was involved. "Nobody will tell us," he said.

A call to ABC was not immediately returned.

Although Parsons denies he's engaged in a publicity stunt, the flood of rejections has yielded a rush of exposure that could be part of a strategy to heighten interest in the ad before it airs.

Parsons said GoDaddy has remitted the cost of the media buy--perhaps $2.5 million--to ABC, and has incurred $1.2 million in production costs.

GoDaddy, which registers Internet domain names, caused a furor in last year's Super Bowl with its provocative ad. After it ran once, Fox pulled the plug on the second airing, making GoDaddy a cause célèbre and the focus of media attention--which it still enjoys. In a press release yesterday, GoDaddy identified itself as "the advertiser censored in last year's Super Bowl commercial controversy."