The 2008 Super Bowl. Why Go Daddy might sit this one out.

It's that time of year again. Time to start thinking about advertising in the 2008 Super Bowl. Here are the facts:

Go Daddy is the industry leader -- by far.
Go Daddy now has more than 4.3 million active customers, with over 23 million domain names under management.

Go Daddy's market share of new ICANN domain names being registered averages about 39% and occasionally - depending on the day - sometimes creeps as high as 50%. To put this into perspective, our closest competitor has fewer than 8 million domains under management and an average daily market share of new ICANN registrations of less than 9%.

There's no doubt Go Daddy's low prices, wide range of domain enabling products - all of which are developed at Go Daddy - and our Industry Best customer support--certainly have made a big difference. Our overall offering is unmatched by any of our competitors - hence their insignificant market shares.

The Super Bowl has played a key role in our success.
As good as our overall offering is, the simple fact is customers need to know we exist before they will do business with us. This is where the Super Bowl and Go Daddy's edgy advertising have made a big difference.

2005 Super Bowl.
Go Daddy advertised for the first time in the 2005 Super Bowl. Our market share of new registrations jumped from 16% before the Big Game to 25% after the game.

2006 Super Bowl.
Go Daddy also experienced the same type of gain after the 2006 Super Bowl. Our market share after that game climbed to 32%.

2007 Super Bowl.
Last year's Super Bowl was also good for the company. Our market share climbed to 38% right after the game and is still inching up.

Here's where the decision gets complicated.
The big complicating factor is that there are many other good alternatives. For example: Earlier this year GoDaddy.com signed on to be the Presenting Sponsor for the 2007 Indianapolis 500 Indy Car Race. And the results were good.

Advertising during the Big Game is expensive.
Advertising during the Super Bowl is "super" expensive. Consider that a 30 second spot is $2.7 million. Then figure 2 or 3 spots, then add another few million or so to produce several commercials -- we never seem to get the first couple approved -- and then include the cost of concurrent promotions, the total cost will exceed 10 million dollars.

Plus there's the element of risk.
And then there's always the risk that our ads on the Big Game might stumble. For our ads to work, they need to be "super" edgy -- or they don't work. There's always the possibility that we might not be able to get an appropriately edgy ad approved. All this considered, there's a strong argument for staying on the sidelines this year and taking that Super Bowl advertising money and using it for other opportunities.

So you see the decision whether to advertise in the 2008 Super Bowl is not going to be so cut and dry. If you feel one way or another about what we should do, tell us with a post on this blog.

And finally the elephant...
In my last blog article, there was a small video clip taken in June in Botswana, showing a friend and I being approached by a young, aggressive bull elephant. Here's what happened after the camera was dropped: The bull got within about 15 paces, trumpeted and did a mock charge. We both had our rifles at the ready, but it became apparent the charge was a bluff, so we didn't shoot. Instead we shouted the elephant back. Seeing it couldn't intimidate us, the young elephant turned and walked away.

Until next time.