Thursday, January 29, 2015

GoDaddy Wins the Internet with Superbowl Troll of Budweiser, Puppy Peddlers, and Crap Web Sites

Back in January of 2014, Budweiser, the stale, pale ale with the foam on the bottom, put out a Super Bowl ad featuring a golden retriever puppy.



I had several problems with the ad.

The first was the "puppy adoptions" sign. 

That's an expensive and permanent sign, and those dogs are NOT being "adopted" -- they are pure bred dogs being SOLD. Nothing wrong with that, but do not piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

When you are selling pure breed retrievers (the most common pure breed, so no points for free thinking there Budweiser shill-meister), you are not in the ADOPTION business, but in the cash-and-carry business. 

The word "adoption" here is cynical marketing malarkey designed to "dog wash" this ad from the stigma that is now attached to breeding pedigree dogs.

The second problem I had with the ad is that this stupid blonde lady seems to have a lot of trouble keeping her dogs watched and in a pen. This is supposed to be cute. It's not. It's reckless endangerment.

My third problem with this ad is that it is incoherent, both as a story and as a marketing vehicle. What is it saying? What is the product? Are they selling horses? Puppies? White bread romance between model-perfect people in a dream-like setting?

This ad has NOTHING to do with the product it is selling. It's bad story with a forgettable label slapped on at the end. In short, pure crap, stem to stern.

In response to this ad, and to win the internet, the folks at Go Daddy mocked the entire puppy mill and puppy-peddler industry -- and even took a swipe at the folks who put up crap web sites selling malarkey. And did they nail the fact that no one who drinks Budweiser can seem to keep a dog safe and on their property? Yes they did!




This ad is perfect in every way -- it trolls Budweiser, it trolls the stupid people without humor who do not understand that it is a straight stab in the eye to internet puppy peddlers and crap web sites foisted on a gullible public by the same -- and it got GoDaddy tons of FREE publicity with the had-to-be-expected backlash . Win, win, win.

As the good folks over at Entrepreneur note,
It is a great spot, as ads go. It plays on emotion and overplayed themes (Anheuser-Busch tends to lose puppies all the time), and then flips the script to give the audience something entirely unexpected. It is funny. It is parody. And it is effective.

But GoDaddy was put through the mill over it because animal-rights groups found it an offensive promotion of puppy mills and backyard breeders. So it took down the ad and made its appropriate mea culpas. The company that first caught our attention by having women in bikinis soap up cars with their ample breasts doesn't want to be in the position where it might offend.

Meanwhile, over at "Kickstarter" there is a campaign for a card game called Exploding Kittens, which has raised north of $4.5 million with over 116,000 backers (and still 21 days to go!). No protests there. Why? Because cats.

Of course, if you are looking for a great Super Bowl commercial that was never intended to be shown on TV, but was intended to be seen by many, it's hard to beat this one:

2 comments:

Greg Mu said...

I love that the sponsored ad preceding the GoDaddy spoof was the actual Budweiser ad it was knocking.

Betsy said...

From what I understand, the "All Natural" Carl's Jr add is indeed slated to run on the west coast during the Superbowl. Their ads always stir up a lot of controversy; go figure!