Go Daddy: “We’re listening, message received” – Superbowl Ad Has Been Withdrawn

Wow. The “puppy” Go Daddy Super Bowl ad is gone.

Blake Irving, Go Daddy’s CEO, announced in a blog post that Go Daddy is pulling the ad from the Super bowl. Go Daddy will be running a different ad instead.

Go Daddy’s Superbowl 2015 ad was published today and caused a bit of a controversy. The video was posted at youtube.com but has now been withdrawn.

This is what Blake Irving had to say:

This morning we previewed GoDaddy’s Super Bowl spot on a popular talk show, and shortly after a controversy started to swirl about Buddy, our puppy, being sold online. The responses were emotional and direct. Many people urged us not to run the ad.

We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress over the past two years, advancing the GoDaddy brand as a company that cares a great deal about small business and is in their corner to help them succeed. People increasingly know who we are, what we do and who we do it for.  At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence. We hoped our ad would increase awareness of that cause. However, we underestimated the emotional response. And we heard that loud and clear.

The net result? We are pulling the ad from the Super Bowl. You’ll still see us in the Big Game this year, and we hope it makes you laugh.

Finally, rest assured, Buddy came to us from a reputable and loving breeder in California. He’s now part of the GoDaddy family as our Chief Companion Officer and he’s been adopted permanently by one of our longtime employees.

Seriously? He had to explain that Buddy is safe and adopted by one of Go Daddy’s employees?

Sometimes people are just hypocrites. I bet that if this was a Hollywood movie everybody would be laughing. Now that it’s a company ad everybody is all over it and defending animal rights. Give me a break.

(No animals were harmed while writing this post.)