Hasta La Creative!

Here’s the latest update on the year’s big Super Bowl ad scandal: GoDaddy told both AdAge and fellow trade pub PR Week last night that the kerfuffle surrounding its quickly retracted Barton F. Graf 9000 “puppy mill” campaign was completely unexpected and that the campaign was NOT a stunt designed to attract maximum media attention.

For the record, most readers of our sister site PRNewser remain convinced that the whole thing was planned…and a majority of those responding to our Twitter feed, as well as just over half of readers who voted in an online AdAge poll, feel the same way. As one tweeter put it, “client claiming ‘not a PR stunt’ is the most classic of PR stunts.”

The company seemed to offer conflicting statements yesterday: at first, reps implied that a second spot from BFG starring longtime spokesperson Danica Patrick (who recently plugged Coca-Cola for Wieden+Kennedy) was ready to air in place of the puppy…but statements to the trade pubs last night indicated that there’s still creative work to be done.

Over the past 24 hours, our contacts offered varied interpretations of the story: one calls it “a campaign turned into a stunt” while another theorizes that the client’s statements about misjudging the public reaction are honest…and too cynical by half. If that’s true, then the Danica Patrick ad that will run during the game may well have been created to serve as the second chapter in the new campaign.

On the PR side, general consensus holds that, if the events really did take the company by surprise, then at least they’ve done a good job in the cleanup aisle.

The client’s shift to BFG last year marked the second time GoDaddy has hired a new agency to “refresh” its image. While the new ad eschewed the casual sexism that usually wins the brand so much (negative) press attention, another contact told us that both client and agency seem to have forgotten that puppies — for whatever reason — are sacred figures in American pop culture.

Budweiser and Anomaly just proved that point.

What do we think? (Barton F. Graf 9000 wisely deferred to the client in every case.)

Internet domain clearinghouse and noted soft-core Super Bowl commercial creator GoDaddy recently announced that that it has “matured.” In fact, in a recent Adweek interview, the company announced it would stop making those questionable advertisements.

“We’ve evolved,” CMO Barb Rechterman said in a statement. “Our new brand of Super Bowl commercials will make it crystal clear what we do and who we stand for. We may be changing our approach, but as we’ve always said, we don’t care what the critics think. We are all about our customers.”

GoDaddy recently appointed Barton F. Graf 9000 (BFG9000) as its AOR after a stint with Deutsch, and now the brand is growing up. Sort of.

They have not outgrown Danica Patrick, who stars in this ad called “Air Wrench.” The goal of the company’s semi-rebranding is to target small businesses. From CMO Barb Rechterman:

“This commercial marks another milestone in our brand evolution. The ad definitely uses humor, as our past campaigns have, but this new campaign is not solely about driving brand awareness — it promotes more than domain names by plugging Website Builder.”

The “Air Wrench” commercial will run during broadcasts of NASCAR races and other sporting events on ESPN this summer. GoDaddy will also use social media to promote the spot. The budget was undisclosed.

Note: BGF9000 was not involved in this campaign.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

As we saw in our December roundup, there's no shortage of sexist ads—the vast majority of which are degrading to women rather than men. But what if the tables were turned?

BuzzFeed's new video, "If Women's Roles in Ads Were Played by Men," swaps the genders in three commercials—for GoDaddy, Hardee's/Carl's Jr. and Doritos. (Only the first two were approved ads, however. The Doritos ad was a fan-made entry into the 2011 Crash the Super Bowl contest, and didn't advance to the finals—though it has gotten more than 2 million views on the director's YouTube channel.)

BuzzFeed recreates each ad and plays them side by side with the originals. The GoDaddy spot reverses the Bar Rafaeli/Jesse Heiman setup and features a good-looking guy having to make out with a nerdy girl. Instead of Nina Agdal oiling up her cleavage for Hardee's/Carl's Jr., we see an average-looking guy … oiling up his cleavage for Hardee's/Carl's Jr. And in the Doritos ad, it's the guy, not his girlfriend, who's naked in bed and covered in Doritos. (Maybe this version would have been a finalist after all.)

"Seeing men like this is ridiculous, so why isn't it with women?" the video says at the end. They picked three cringeworthy ads to replicate, but the question certainly holds merit. Sex and humor are effective for a lot of campaigns, but it'd be nice if that could be achieved without, you know, gratuitous crotch shots.

GoDaddy will try a real-world prank/stunt in the second of its two Super Bowl commercials this Sunday, as a woman will quit her job in front of the world to pursue her dream of starting her own business. The Web-hosting company released a teaser for the spot on Tuesday in which actor John Turturro sets up the premise.

"Let's talk about dreams, and the people who choose to pursue them. Like [BLEEP]," he says, as a picture frame with a question mark appears. "She's a real person with a real dream of starting her very own business. And she's got a message for her boss in front of 100 million people."

The gambit is clearly inspired by prank videos. Presumably the woman's boss had no idea this was coming, and will have a genuine reaction—positive or negative—that could be fun to see. UPDATE: GoDaddy sent through some more information. "Her boss doesn't know!" the company says. "He or she is going to find out while watching the commercial with the rest of the viewers—after the commercial, a formal resignation letter will be delivered and she'll give her two-week notice."

The stunt also recalls Marina Shifrin's spectacular late-night job-quitting dance from the super-viral video she posted last year. People just like seeing other people stick it to their boss. The concept would work better for a jobs site, but GoDaddy could make it work, though at 30 seconds it might be tough.

GoDaddy is evolving its messaging away from sleaze and toward a more respectable focus on women as business owners. The company's other 2014 Super Bowl spot, already released in full, stars Danica Patrick as one of many bodybuilders seeking a spray tan from a GoDaddy-using business owner.