GoDaddy's Super Bowl Commercial

[1PlanHost]

I thought Godaddy’s commercial was very much in bad taste and was very surprised they attempted to run a parody such as that considering Bob Parson got his start developing and selling Church and Bible software. I am personally embarrassed to tell others that we resell their domains through WildWestDomains after this and may look at other registrars. True, the company can spend their money on whatever they want but then so can I as a consumer with thousands of registered domains. I think they may get an increase out of the ad but stooping down to the level of female degradation may backfire on them.

Sure sex sells, but at what price? There is always a cost to someone and in this case women lose. I understand that Bob may have just been trying to make some free speech point but this is in my opinion a slap to women, not just the FCC.

Anyone else have a comment on it?

[WebEdit]

I think its a pretty complicated issue to talk about degredation of women especially in the context of the church, i.e. Eve being the source of suffering in the world and the demonization of paganism and women as a source of wisdom in early Christian history and today's issues like birth control, etc.

Speaking solely to the ad in terms of women and society in a secular sense I think that the ad sexually objectifies women but in a broader context the offense is a pretty small one.

I think there are about a million things I would get upset about going on in our society and our world before I would consider this ad as a big enough deal to worry about.

It certainly wouldn't be anything that would make me consider switching from GoDaddy as a domain registrar or not using them.

If you've seen BobParsons.com I think Bob comes across as a good man and certainly very human which is a stark contrast to a lot of soulless corporations out there who are interested in the bottom line only.

[1PlanHost]

You are correct that this may seem as an insignificant offense yet I believe that every message is important, especially when millions are seeing or hearing it. Eve is not the blame for human suffering yet that false teaching/message still resonates even today as you have pointed out.

Sure sex sells, but at what price? There is always a cost to someone and in this case women lose. Did the majority of the viewers even remember what GoDaddy is selling in the ad? I understand that Bob may have just been trying to make some free speech point and use it to create spin around his ad to boost it's effectiveness AFTER the show when the media gets a hold of it. The ad is in my opinion a slap to women (degrading them to sex objects), not just the FCC and NFL. There is a lot of buzz on the Internet and TV about this and no doubt Bob is laughing all the way to the bank over the hype about his second ad (longer and even more degrading version) being pulled at the last minute by Fox under pressure from the NFL.

Hopefully companies will learn to be socially responsible enough to be sensitive to all people including women. I don't know Bob personally but have done business with his companys since 1993 (formerly with Parsons Technology). I am sure he is a "good man" but I was surprised to see the ad nevertheless. The bigger picture is always important and let not Godaddy forget that women are consumers of domain names as well as men and I suspect that many were offended.

[WebEdit]

OK, I hear you. I agree with you as well that the more furor over this the more money GoDaddy will end up making. They got exactly what they wanted and that was name recognition.

Still, look at this commercial in a broader context. It's part of the biggest sporting event of the year for Americans which is what? The Super Bowl. Talk about a game that glorifies violence. Football is an extremely violent game. Also, look at the behavior of today's athletes. It teaches young people what? That if you are the best at what you do then you can get away with anything. That there are different rules for the common joe and the super star.

I have to agree with you that all messages are important but my point is that we are awash in a sea of sex and violence in the media much worse than this and even beyond advertising what about the real world actual violence and degredation of women? How about what the US is doing in Guantanamo Bay and has done in that Iraqi prison? How about US support for Pakistan? The government is a military dictatorship that took over a democractically elected government in a coup and then developed nulcear weapons. Why don't we have sanctions against them? Because their leader is friendly to the US. How about all the pornography on the internet- still it's main function.

Anyway, I don't mean to sidetrack the thread into a political discussion. I just want to make a point that by raising a furor over a small fry issue like this we are ignoring much bigger and more important issues that people should be raising a furor over daily.

Maybe that is what Bob means by his commercial.

I have this question for you. Where would you draw the line in using women in advertising? Should women be covered from head to toe like in strict Muslim countries in ads or should there be a ban on using attractive women or in what way can we regulate it? Or perhaps it's not a matter of regulation and as you suggest in your original post- don't buy goods and services from people who have negative ads.