GoDaddy pulls puppy-themed Super Bowl commercial after controversy

We are right in the middle of Super Bowl commercial week, and with that, we know that we will be spending much of the next few days discussing rather passionately commercials. At this point, we care about that a whole lot more than we care about the actual game.

Interestingly, though, we are actually going to spend a good chunk of time now discussing a commercial that is not even going to air for popular web domain / hosting service GoDaddy. They are known for controversial ads, but have moved on from their spots showing women taking their clothes off. One of their ads this year was meant to be the story of Buddy, a lovable puppy who fell out of a truck, only to eventually find his way back to his owner. The twist? By the time the dog arrived back, we learned that the owner had used GoDaddy in order to sell him. The ad itself doesn’t make a ton of sense; if the dog was missing, wouldn’t selling it be one of the worst uses of time ever?

The idea here was for this to clearly be a spoof on the heartfelt Budweiser ads that we saw last year, but after it was debuted earlier, it was heavily criticized by both viewers and also animal-rights organizations. Basically, the general consensus here was that the ad, while effective to some, was by and large cruel. If there is one thing America loves, it’s puppies! Don’t be too harsh on them, okay?

Ultimately, CEO Blake Irving (see the tweet below) decided that the ad would not be shown during the game. While the intent here was obviously just to sell the product in a fun and edgy way, they obviously misjudged the sensitivity of viewers and animal lovers. We are very against the over-sensitivity of the American public (everyone tends to be offended by almost everything these days), but in this case it feels like the ad was probably in poor taste. There weren’t bad intentions behind it, but like a good puppy, they should have been able to sniff out the problems here.

What’s your take on the controversy? Share below, and head over here to get some other TV updates via our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: NBC.)

Thank you @animalrescuers for the candid feedback. What should have been a fun and funny ad clearly missed the mark and we will not air it.

— Blake Irving (@Blakei) January 27, 2015