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GoDaddy looks like a winner!
GoDaddy.com, the Internet domain registrar that used tasteless humor to promote itself during the Super Bowl, actually has a good idea, a profitable company, a great brand and savvy owner. Too bad the advertising failed to mention any of it.
I was really down on GoDaddy after its Super Bowl performance. While it got people talking about the racy ads, not too many people were discussing the service. I figured it was another start-up blowing its wad with no solid brand behind the madness.
But I was dead wrong. GoDaddy is a great brand that blew a wad of solid profits on a silly Super Bowl ad. All GoDaddy really needed was a PR campaign to get the word out on its brand. They have the story, the sales and the status.
Just look at the excellent article in today’s USA Today which profiles the company and its founder Bob Parsons. While the article gives credit to the advertising for raising the company’s profile, I actually think it is only because of the company’s tremendous overall PR potential that the paper decided to cover the story almost a month after the game. A story the media would have covered without the Super Bowl stunt.
What is interesting about GoDaddy is not the silly advertising but the company itself. And that is why USA Today, many other media outlets and consumers have picked up on company.
With more than 6 million names GoDaddy is a close second to Network Solutions in world-wide domain name management. Wow! A close second, who knew? They are a well-positioned No. 2 brand because they are the exact opposite of Network Solutions. While Network Solutions might be the real thing, they are the older, complex and more expensive registrar. GoDaddy is hip, simple and cheap. The name is strange and has no relevance to the category. But again shocking and unique names work exceeding well on the Internet (Google, Yahoo!, Amazon) and it is the opposite of the stogy Network Solutions name. And GoDaddy avoids being the worst kind of brand name, a generic name like LowCostDomains.com.
I was so taken by the GoDaddy brand today that I even transferred one of my domains to test them out. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was and now plan on spreading the word about the company to my friends and colleagues. So if you have a website check out GoDaddy today!