• by Shankar Gupta , February 8, 2005

Proving once again that controversy can be a boost to marketing, GoDaddy used the Internet to parlay an ad censored by the NFL into big post-game buzz.

GoDaddy bought one spot in the first half and another in the second, but the NFL reportedly convinced Fox to withdraw the second ad mid-game, after the first one ran. The ad featured a buxom spokeswoman in a tank top, who nearly suffers a wardrobe malfunction while testifying before a Congressional panel about what she would be doing on her proposed ad.

After Fox refused to air a second ad, GoDaddy came up with a post-game strategy to write about Fox's decision in the blog of CEO Bob Parsons, which also contained links to the ad. The tactic worked, said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek. "They pursued an edgy strategy from the very beginning," Blackshaw said. "People related to that ad on a whole bunch of different levels. There was sexual titillation, and advertising industry insiders got into the whole mocking of the FCC censorship."

Other ads that were generating heat online, like Federal Express's ad--which featured Burt Reynolds getting kicked in the groin by a talking bear--had their buzz cut into by GoDaddy's controversy, Blackshaw said.

"Everyone wants to maximize their share of water cooler conversations in the days after the game," he said. "Are they going to suffer because the debate has moved to Fox pulling the GoDaddy ad? Yeah, they probably will."

Pete Snyder, the CEO and founder of New Media Strategies, agreed that more online tongues wagged about GoDaddy's ad than others, but that doesn't necessarily make GoDaddy the Ad Bowl champ.

"That doesn't mean it's the biggest winner," Snyder said. "This morning the blogosphere was buzzing about the fact that the CEO of GoDaddy got on his blog and talked about how their ad was pulled by Fox in the middle of the game."

Overall, said Snyder, although some of the comments were negative, GoDaddy still came out ahead in terms of generating brand recognition. "There's no doubt that this is a net help to GoDaddy," he said. "It's all about the exposure. I'm sure they're happy with the ROI they're getting out of the Super Bowl this year."

GoDaddy also was especially effective at using search engine management to build and increase buzz, said Joshua Stylman, a managing partner at Reprise Media. In fact, said Stylman, GoDaddy's successful search marketing strategy is part of the reason there's so much buzz surrounding the controversy of the ad.

"They were one of the companies using online to reinforce their offline message, both in the form of search marketing and using their CEO's blog," Stylman said. "They were one of the companies who were very clearly buying visible sponsorships on both Google and Yahoo!. They also had a site tied to their Super Bowl creative, which helped their organic results."

Using search is important for companies looking to develop buzz, Stylman said, because the search engines can extend dialogue on the Web, and drive consumers who are looking for information about their favorite ads to advertisers' sites. Monday afternoon, a Google search using the terms "Super Bowl Ads" yielded sponsored links to the sites of several companies that advertised during the game, including GoDaddy.

Snyder's New Media Strategies and Blackshaw's Intelliseek both employ proprietary technologies that scan the blogosphere--millions and millions of different Web sites--for the Internet buzz about their clients. Intelliseek employed a panel of bloggers to watch the Super Bowl and liveblog the ads, and New Media Strategies had a group of analysts taking a look at the buzz results.

Other ads that generated gossip during and after game night were Anheuser-Busch, CareerBuilder, and Ameriquest. According to Snyder, Ameriquest's 'cat killer' ad got the most buzz for being creative. That ad showed a man fixing dinner when his cat knocks over a pot filled with tomato sauce. He leans down to pick up the cat (still holding a butcher knife, which he was using to chop vegetables), at the very moment his girlfriend walks in--seeing him holding the cat by the scruff of its neck in one hand, a butcher knife with the other--and the floor of the kitchen and the cat covered with red. The tagline: Don't Judge Too Quickly.

Another ad that got very positive online feedback, according to both Blackshaw and Snyder, was the Anheuser-Busch "thank you" to the troops fighting overseas. "People thought it was just very well done," Snyder said. "Not too over the top or schmaltzy, but it addressed the issue in a very good way, and captured the tone of the Super Bowl." Other winners in terms of positive buzz included CareerBuilder's monkey spot, Pepsi's ads, and FedEx's abovementioned ad.

Among the ads that fell a bit flat were McDonald's Abe Lincoln french fry spot, and the Quiznos talking baby ad, Snyder and Blackshaw said.

Stylman said that many companies failed to leverage the search angle of buzz creation, and thus didn't get as great a windfall from their ads as they could have. "A lot of the marketers that we were looking at missed a big opportunity to get extended dialogue on the Web," he said. "For additional pennies per user, they can get people to their site." Reprise Media monitored which companies best combined search marketing with their Super Bowl offerings, and produced a "Media Scorecard."

According to Reprise's report, Staples, Ameriquest, and Volvo had the top ads for search engine marketing. Each company had purchased sponsored keywords on Google and Yahoo!, had a tie-in to the Super Bowl commercial in their search listing and on their site, and some sort of "call-to-action," leading the customer through the site to check out the advertised products.

Despite the attention garnered by GoDaddy's racy ad and post-game controversy, it didn't dominate the discussion of the game nearly as much as Janet Jackson's half-time exposure did last year, which was good news for advertisers, Snyder said. "I don't think it's having the same crowd out effect, but it's still in the lead," he said. "Because of the lack of in-game controversy, this is the one that's hopping into the fray. I just don't think that it's going to have the media saturation that Ms. Jackson's bosoms had last year."