GoDaddy and Their No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Super Bowl Puppy Commercial

Well, that didn't go too well. GoDaddy has a history of slightly ridiculous Super Bowl commercials (Bar Refaeli smooching on the nerdy dude) and I tend to think they do it on purpose, getting much more traction out of the reactions to their commercials than the commercials themselves.

HOWEVER! They teased their latest commercial for the Super Bowl online, and I think they may have gone just a touch too far. Essentially, an adorable puppy falls off the back of the truck and is lost. He then runs home through various scary scenarios to be reunited with is family. His owners then sell him on a website built by GoDaddy. The puppy makes a "what the?" sound and gets in a van driven by Danica Patrick. The End.

Boy oh boy did people hate it. And I mean HATE it. PETA, pet lovers on Twitter, the blogosphere in general. It exploded with instant visceral hate towards GoDaddy. If you look up the hashtag "#godaddypuppy" it's all there. I don't like to put that kind of language on the blog, so take a look at your own leisure. Also, don't do it at work. The NSFW tag applies.

So, GoDaddy heard their critics and responded. They pulled the ad and offered up this apology:

"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 lives permanently with one of our longtime employees."

Personally, the watched it and didn't freak out. Lots of people buy their dogs from reputable breeders, but I can understand why you wouldn't want to promote puppy mills. Those are a bad scene. I'm thinking GoDaddy was just trying to be funny slightly off kilter and missed their mark. Plus, my kid saw the commercial too and, apparently, I now have to get a dog.

Check out some of GoDaddy's previous ads.