GoDaddy Super Bowl Ad
On March 5, 2005 I updated the wording to clarify some poorly made points in this article.
Like millions of Americans, we TiVo the Super Bowl.
Like millions of Americans, we fast-forward through the garbage and watch the good parts over and over, and sometimes in slow-motion.
Unlike millions of Americans, we didn't watch the game. We watched the commercials. I didn't even know who was playing until part way through the game when we stopped just before a commercial and saw the scoreboard graphic. I think it was the Patriots and some other team. A football team, I think. You can probably google for "super bowl" if you want to find out.
Anyway, like millions of Americans we were anticipating the GoDaddy.com commercial and we weren't disappointed. The GoDaddy spot spoofs the current sensitivity of the FCC and networks to anything that could be considered indecent. A busty brunette with a spaghetti-strap top with the GoDaddy logo on the front is testifying before a network censorship board when one strap of her top snaps. Nothing is revealed -- the top doesn't even slide down -- the strap just comes lose.
The board, mostly older men, nearly passes out over this non-event. A clever parody of the outcry over the Janet Jackson incident last year, though not anywhere near as revealing. Pretty funny even if you happen to agree with me that Janet Jackson should remain fully clothed on TV.
The funniest part of this commercial, though, is what happened behind the scenes. Cheerleader-ogling NFL officials saw the ad and nearly choked on their Budweisers when they realized they had another "wardrobe malfunction" on their hands, and that they were the subject of the satire. They forced Fox to cancel the second GoDaddy spot, which was due to appear in the final two minutes of the game.
This ad works because the "wardrobe malfunction" is completely innocent. The humor is in the over-reaction of the committee. If the incident had revealed anything, then the reaction would have been natural and it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. So GoDaddy and the NFL had the same goal: No indecency. This leads us to conclude that the problem the NFL had wasn't over indecency, but with the fact that they were the butt of the joke.
Secondly, the irony of the NFL and Fox censoring a parody of censorship is funny on so many levels it's difficult to count. The ad achieves the nirvana of parody, where the parody is so accurate it becomes factual. It's like watching the movie "Wag the Dog" where politicians stage a fake war to keep the public's attention off the President's sexual indiscretion (he molests a Girl Scout in the Oval Office if I recall correctly). You watch the movie, then you live through the Clinton administration and watch Bill Clinton bomb an aspirin factory on the eve of Monica Lewinski's grand jury testimony and you wonder which is the parody and which is the fact.
The GoDaddy ad is so much less offensive than everything else we see on TV that it's hard to believe it's getting this much attention. But you can't beat the buzz it's generating for GoDaddy's Web hosting services. Once again, a very well-executed play by Bob Parsons.
Postscript:
Some have noted that this was not "censorship" because it wasn't executed by the government. I would encourage them to look up the word in the dictionary. While government censorship is profoundly more significant, the word "censorship" accurately describes what took place.
Some people are disturbed by my apparent support of this ad. I'm not saying I would have recommended that they run this ad, nor that I would use an ad like this for any product I was associated with. I'm only observing what happened when GoDaddy ran this ad.
I have been accused of defending indecency. I have said that I don't believe the ad was "indecent" therefore any defense I've made of it is not a defense of indecency. If I believed it was indecent I would not defend it. Furthermore, I don't believe I've "defended" the ad so much as observed what happened and commented on it.
I've been very disappointed with the lack of Christian charity that has been exhibited toward me in blogs and other public postings commenting on the opinions I've expressed concerning this ad. In each case I have attempted to contact my detractors privately by email and in no case have any of them responded. I've been accused of not being a true Christian by people who won't follow the biblical mandate of privately exhorting one who they believe is in sin. I'm both frustrated and deeply disappointed by what passes for "righteousness" in some circles.
Like millions of Americans, we TiVo the Super Bowl.
Like millions of Americans, we fast-forward through the garbage and watch the good parts over and over, and sometimes in slow-motion.
Unlike millions of Americans, we didn't watch the game. We watched the commercials. I didn't even know who was playing until part way through the game when we stopped just before a commercial and saw the scoreboard graphic. I think it was the Patriots and some other team. A football team, I think. You can probably google for "super bowl" if you want to find out.
Anyway, like millions of Americans we were anticipating the GoDaddy.com commercial and we weren't disappointed. The GoDaddy spot spoofs the current sensitivity of the FCC and networks to anything that could be considered indecent. A busty brunette with a spaghetti-strap top with the GoDaddy logo on the front is testifying before a network censorship board when one strap of her top snaps. Nothing is revealed -- the top doesn't even slide down -- the strap just comes lose.
The board, mostly older men, nearly passes out over this non-event. A clever parody of the outcry over the Janet Jackson incident last year, though not anywhere near as revealing. Pretty funny even if you happen to agree with me that Janet Jackson should remain fully clothed on TV.
The funniest part of this commercial, though, is what happened behind the scenes. Cheerleader-ogling NFL officials saw the ad and nearly choked on their Budweisers when they realized they had another "wardrobe malfunction" on their hands, and that they were the subject of the satire. They forced Fox to cancel the second GoDaddy spot, which was due to appear in the final two minutes of the game.
This ad works because the "wardrobe malfunction" is completely innocent. The humor is in the over-reaction of the committee. If the incident had revealed anything, then the reaction would have been natural and it wouldn't have been nearly as funny. So GoDaddy and the NFL had the same goal: No indecency. This leads us to conclude that the problem the NFL had wasn't over indecency, but with the fact that they were the butt of the joke.
Secondly, the irony of the NFL and Fox censoring a parody of censorship is funny on so many levels it's difficult to count. The ad achieves the nirvana of parody, where the parody is so accurate it becomes factual. It's like watching the movie "Wag the Dog" where politicians stage a fake war to keep the public's attention off the President's sexual indiscretion (he molests a Girl Scout in the Oval Office if I recall correctly). You watch the movie, then you live through the Clinton administration and watch Bill Clinton bomb an aspirin factory on the eve of Monica Lewinski's grand jury testimony and you wonder which is the parody and which is the fact.
The GoDaddy ad is so much less offensive than everything else we see on TV that it's hard to believe it's getting this much attention. But you can't beat the buzz it's generating for GoDaddy's Web hosting services. Once again, a very well-executed play by Bob Parsons.
Postscript:
Some have noted that this was not "censorship" because it wasn't executed by the government. I would encourage them to look up the word in the dictionary. While government censorship is profoundly more significant, the word "censorship" accurately describes what took place.
Some people are disturbed by my apparent support of this ad. I'm not saying I would have recommended that they run this ad, nor that I would use an ad like this for any product I was associated with. I'm only observing what happened when GoDaddy ran this ad.
I have been accused of defending indecency. I have said that I don't believe the ad was "indecent" therefore any defense I've made of it is not a defense of indecency. If I believed it was indecent I would not defend it. Furthermore, I don't believe I've "defended" the ad so much as observed what happened and commented on it.
I've been very disappointed with the lack of Christian charity that has been exhibited toward me in blogs and other public postings commenting on the opinions I've expressed concerning this ad. In each case I have attempted to contact my detractors privately by email and in no case have any of them responded. I've been accused of not being a true Christian by people who won't follow the biblical mandate of privately exhorting one who they believe is in sin. I'm both frustrated and deeply disappointed by what passes for "righteousness" in some circles.
posted by Craig Rairdin at 11:32
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