It’s no secret: Sex sells. Sex is a common marketing approach in our patriarchal society, as it evokes curiosity and captivates attention. Keeping with the values and interests of our society, advertisements are relatively boring if they do not include aspects of humor or sexuality.

One company, GoDaddy, has taken the notion of captivating its prospective clients to the extreme. The owner of the domain name and web hosting company, established in 1997, realized throughout the following decade that it needed a better way to advertise its relatively boring product.

GoDaddy decided to vamp up its image, joining the mainstream use of scantily clothed girls to pull in new customers. Today, the company’s use of sex to sell has escaladed. Though the content is very controversial, the advertisements are still getting a lot of attention from the public.

Its Super Bowl ad this year seemed to just disgust viewers rather than humor them. The 30-second spot of supermodel Bar Rafaeli kissing a nerdy actor gained a substantial amount of negative feedback. The close-up shot accompanied by the sound of their lips smacking was enough to make most feel uncomfortable.

Super Bowl commercials are supposed to garner every brand’s best effort, whether it be funny or sentimental, but GoDaddy’s ad was just bizarre. Bluefin Labs, a social analytics company, released a report stating the ad received the most negative social media mentions of all advertisements that night.

Viewers were mostly disgusted by the content despite Rafaeli’s presence. But from an advertising perspective, it may be better to shock and offend an audience than fail to gain any reaction. While the responses were mainly negative, the ad still gained a lot of attention from its airing.

While most brands use commercials to express their company’s values, GoDaddy uses its commercials to entice people to talk about it by using the shock-and-awe technique.

The notorious company has caused some to take action. Breakupwithgodaddy.com is a website that boycotts the sexist company. Boycotters are upset that GoDaddy is a market leader in domain registration and wants its prospective customers and current subscribers to reconsider their affiliation with the company.

Advertisements play off of generalizations when it comes to depicting women, men, age, race and income. But usually a more subtle approach is used, rather than blunt mockery of individuals falling under categories such as smart or beautiful.

Overall, advertising comes down to one fundamental idea: stand out. But because the public is becoming increasingly better at avoiding ads, companies are producing whatever it takes to be noticed and talked about.

Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy, isn’t fazed by the hate around his company. He makes no apologies for his racy commercials because, to him, the controversy means people are talking about the company.

GoDaddy’s Super Bowl advertisement may have attracted mainly negative feedback, but the brand has been successfully executing the same strategy of using sex to sell for years. The general public’s undoubted disapproval of the ad only helped perpetuate its circulation in the media by sparking interest and gathering attention.

Until our society changes its perception of sexism as humorous and entertaining, companies such as GoDaddy will continue using sex to sell its products. Rather than blaming them, maybe we should look at how our reactions to sexualized ads are the reason for their growing popularity.

Paris Bethel is a sophomore advertising major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected].

Published on February 13, 2013 at 2:05 am