Since we had our first Super Bowl ad air, and our second airing of that ad censored, I've been asked time and again to disclose what the results have been for GoDaddy.com.

Here's how to see our ads Fox rejected, our Super Bowl as and other ads.
By the way, if you haven't seen either our Super Bowl ad or our new ads, and would like to, please click on the following link, or copy and paste it into your browser:

http://www.godaddy.com/gdshop/superbowl05/landing.asp

Our Super Bowl ad exceeded all expectations.
What I do know for certain is that the results from the ad exceeded all of my wildest expectations. You see, I didn't expect much more from the ad than GoDaddy.com benefiting from increased brand recognition, and maybe some additional business. All along we only intended the ad to be a launch of our brand into mainstream media.

After the Super Bowl, our ad was watched online millions of times.
One of the first things to consider is the amount of post Super Bowl interest the ad (and our special 2 minute extended version) received. A good gauge for this is the number of views the commercial had on our Web site (and on other Web sites that we know about) as well as the number of downloads.

A few of the Web sites on which our ads were available for view or download collapsed during the day after the Super Bowl. During the three months prior to the Super Bowl we worked hard on our web site, and invested several million dollars more in our system infrastructure, just to make sure we could handle anything that would come our way; and our systems handled the traffic just fine.

From our Web site alone, the two commercials together were viewed a total of 2.6 million times. In addition to our Web site, these two commercials were also available on many other Web sites such as iFilm.com, aol.com, msn.com, foxsports.com and many others. We estimate that the commercial was viewed at least another two and one half million or so times on these sites (and perhaps much more than this). So our message was viewed at least 5.1 million additional times after the Super Bowl.

The GoDaddy.com ad actually won the FoxSports.com on-line poll.
Foxsports.com and aol.com both conducted a live voting poll on their Web sites. I am very pleased to report that as of this writing the GoDaddy.com Super Bowl ad leads the voting on the FoxSports.com Web site garnering 21% of over 300,000 votes cast. In the aol.com poll, the GoDaddy.com ad finished 4th with 7% of the overall vote.

There has been no discernable backlash from people upset by our commercial.
I am also very happy to report that in spite of all the controversy that resulted from our Super Bowl ad that there has been no backlash in our business. This is in line with the results of the on-line survey we asked viewers of our commercial to complete. In that survey, more than 96% of males and more than 89% of females, said they were not offended by our commercial.

Overall business continues to be strong.
Business itself continues to be strong, and has yet to abate from its post Super Bowl peaks. I think this is the case for two reasons: First, our Super Bowl ad worked well. It brought a large amount of traffic to our web site, and many people got to see just how good the deals are that we offer. Second, as I mentioned in an earlier article, we also kicked off our new "There's a name for people like you" advertising campaign on television, radio and print.

There's no doubt that our decision to advertise on the Super Bowl had the effect we were looking for. It introduced GoDaddy.com to those individuals who use the Internet, but who don't spend a lot of time online.

I would prefer Fox not have censored the second spot.
Many people believe that it was the decision made by Fox to censor the second airing that made the ad work so well. I personally am not so sure that this is the case. In many venues where our ad was shown, people actually stood up and cheered. I think this happened because the commercial appealed to them in a slap stick sort of way, and also struck a chord with them — given some of the ridiculous and unevenly applied censorship we are now seeing. Many people tell me they're simply fed up with it. So I believe that if the ad was in fact shown a second time — as was planned — we would have had as much, if not more, traffic come to our Web site, and would have been just as well known. Of course, we will never really know if Fox's decision actually helped or hurt us.

A few self-proclaimed experts were dead wrong.
I do know is that our ad worked because it was edgy and hit home with folks on both sides of the censorship issue. Since the ad aired, there have been a number of self proclaimed pundits step up and say that our ad was completely worthless. Two of these "experts" that I became particularly aware of were Jerry Della Femina, who appeared on the MSNBC show "Countdown;" and Moses Anshell CEO Jos Anshell, who joked in print and on a local Phoenix radio station: "I would say that [Go Daddy's] commercial was a bust." Knowing that both of these two fellows make their living in the advertising business, and that their public evaluation of our Super Bowl ad was dead wrong, gives me a rather satisfying smile. Better luck next time, gentlemen!

Other experts knew a winner when they saw it.
In contrast to Jerry Della Femina and Jos Anshell, I look back with respect to Donny Deutsch, host of CNBC's "The Big Idea," Matt Lauer, who co-hosts NBC's "The Today Show," and Dylan Ratigan, host of CNBC's "BullsEye," who all came out early and said that our Super Bowl ad had potential. Donny Deutsch even predicted it would be the best ad on the Super Bowl.

GoDaddy.com has reached a settlement with Fox.
Finally, I announced when I appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, that GoDaddy.com and Fox Sports had reached an agreement in principle to settle our differences resulting from Fox's decision not to air our ad the second time.

I continue to be a happy guy.
Today, we finalized and signed the agreement. Like most contracts that settle disputes, this one has a clause that requires all parties to be silent on its specific terms. The one thing I can tell you, is that I am very happy with the settlement.

Share of voice numbers reaching out to Feb 12 are not yet available.
We are still waiting to learn what the "experts" are going to say concerning what our post Super Bowl "SOV" numbers actually have been. ("SOV" is an industry acronym for "Share of Voice" or mentions in subsequently published media such as television, radio and print). I believe that when this information becomes available, our censored commercial will prove to be one of the most widely talked about commercials ever. But then again, I'm looking at things from the Foxhole (pun intended) where all the action is taking place; so my slant at this moment, regarding "SOV" for our ad, might be somewhat off. I'll have these numbers early next week, and when I get them, I'll post them here on the Blog.

Go Daddy!