GoDaddy, the world’s largest domain name provider, has been steadily rebranding its image over the past year, and today they announced another big step in their creative overhaul: GoDaddy has hired advertising agency Barton F Graf 9000 to continue its image makeover in a new campaign set to premiere in September.
The ad agency has a penchant for injecting humor into their campaigns like Axe body spray. This quality will help GoDaddy continue the brand shift it started last year, shifting away from “sexy” to a focus on empowering small businesses and women entrepreneurs.
“Humor has always been a part of the GoDaddy brand. We like to have fun, but when it comes to serving our customers, we take our business very seriously,” said Elizabeth Driscoll, VP Corporate Communications at GoDaddy.
The company has experienced its share of controversy over the years with its innuendo charged ads, but after discovering that women were becoming a larger part of their target audience, GoDaddy felt the need to reinvent itself.
“We don’t need to be risqué to make our point about how we help customers succeed online and how we offer personalized, 24/7 phone support,” added Driscoll, citing the shift audiences saw from this year’s Super Bowl ad. The commercial featured a woman announcing she was quitting her job as a machine engineer to start her own puppet making business.
[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gf0vzLgF-OI[/youtube]
“You’ll continue to see us talk to women as smart, successful small business owners … and have fun doing it,” Driscoll said.
Viewers can expect to see familiar faces like Danica Patrick representing GoDaddy because of her positive image not only to the company’s small business owners, but to young girls as well.
GoDaddy will also be going forward with their “It’s Go Time” campaign, which last fall featured martial artist and actor Jean-Claude Van Damme motivating a baker to finish up a large order.
“We love the ‘It’s Go Time’ message because it speaks to the GoGetter inside our customers who are all about following their dreams, building their businesses and leveraging the Internet,” said Driscoll, adding that GoDaddy is considering building on this theme in new ways.
More recent GoDaddy commercials have encompassed this idea further. Their product “Get Found” helps small businesses boost their presence online and viewers will see the same humor and empowerment vibe used in their campaign ads.
[youtube width=”560″ height=”315″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo2lVSrA_88&list=PLdg4YtrtIzuk6wc1gB-AH25gsR9dvrGyw&index=2[/youtube]
Last month, GoDaddy made a big leap forward for its company by announcing it had filed for $100 million IPO (initial public offering). The IPO offers shares of its Class A common stock, but details of the amount of shares and their prices have not been released.
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Contributions from New York Times.
