GoDaddy Pulls Controversial Super Bowl Puppy Commercial

GoDaddy announced last night that their highly controversial Super Bowl commercial has been pulled and will be replaced by another ad. The commercial originally depicted a Golden Retriever puppy, Buddy, get thrown from the back of a truck and follows his rough journey home to his owner. Once returning home, he is greeted by his owner, who exclaimed “I am so glad you made it home because I just sold you on a website I built with GoDaddy”.  Buddy was loaded into a van driven by NASCAR driver, Danica Patrick, as his owner shouts “Ship him out!”. Responsible breeders and dog lovers were outraged and spoke out through social media outlets and letters and petitions to GoDaddy.

The American Kennel Club’s response to the commercial can be found here.

In a statement titled “We’re listening, message received”, GoDaddy’s Chief Executive Officer, Blake Irving states the following:

“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.”

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=69979

Posted by chesliepickett on Jan 28 2015. Filed under Featured, The Buzz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.