February 4, 2013

A confession about that GoDaddy ad

Filed under: Consumer — marcstober @ 9:44 am

I’m coming out of the closet. I’m straight. I like women.

I say this because the reaction to the GoDaddy Super Bowl ad makes it seem like this is something to be ashamed of.

The same parts of blogo-twitter-space that would gush about Anne Hathaway’s latest movie, Project Runway, or the dresses on the red carpet suddenly declare that the idea that hot female celebrities would actually appeal to certain proclivities of the straight male is somehow shameful.

It’s like the emperor has no clothes; the only thing I find really explicit about GoDaddy’s ad is that they’re the only ones who actually say that sexy sells.

Ordinarily I’d be offended by sexism in a professional technology context, like a trade magazine or conference. I’ll retract this article if you show me that GoDaddy actually expects its male and female network engineers to look and act like the characters in the ad! But this is the Super Bowl, with cheerleaders and Beyonce, and they’re selling a commodity product to a mass market. Come on.

In fact, the thing about the ad that attracts me as a customer means they’re a financially secure enough company to run a Super Bowl ad. I’ve been burned by going with a darling of social media when they went out of business, taking my website down with them.