First off, I'm sorry for the enlarged video. I attempted to make it smaller and have it display the ClevverNews "journalist" to no avail.
Most people are familiar with this infamous Super Bowl commercial. Go Daddy is known for their racy, attention-getting advertisements. All are incredibly sexist and stereotypical. This commercial is the icing on the cake. When I watched the ClevverNews presentation of this commercial, I was intrigued, but not the way I am when I watch Bill Moyers with my parents. (Yes, I'm that cool.) The female journalist's take on the commercial embodied all the issues for women in today's media. She said, "(Bar Refaili) obviously represents the sexy side, while Heiman personifies the smart side." For those of you who aren't familiar with Bar Refaili, SHE is a model. He, Heiman, has been an extra and a character actor in films here and there. The woman's statement shows the skewed image we have of women today. Women are obviously meant to be the sexy side. They can't be the smart side.
I admit, when I first saw this ad, I thought, "Why are they being mean to nerds?" I had been so used to Go Daddy objectifying women, that, for a second, I dismissed the sexist misrepresentation of women. Honestly, I was too disgusted to even think about what was going on in this commercial.
Who is Go Daddy targeting in this commercial, the sexy or the smart? Go Daddy, believe or not, is actually a company that sells website domains. The commercial appeals to be targeting smart, nerdy website builders, forgetting that even cool people know a thing or two about computer science. Will.i.am is fascinated by quantum physics, and is going back to school to study computer science. I guess the Go Daddy market team skimmed over that will.i.am article in favor of another photo montage of Kim K's baby bump.
Go Daddy shook things up a bit by ditching the old need to satisfy curiosity. They provided you with a very racy clip of a make-out session. What needs were they trying to satisfy this time? Need for affiliation is a prominent part of the commercial. The tag line of the commercial is the idea of sexy and smart coming together. In some ways, there is this sense of need to achieve. That sense is what makes this commercial sexist and stereotypical. Women are sex objects. A woman's goal in life is to be sexy enough make-out with a smart man, because she couldn't get him any other way. A nerd's goal in life is to make-out with a sexy woman because it's such an anomaly.
I'm not really sure what advertising techniques are being used here. To find the answers I tried asking myself what goes through the heads of a marketing team, before they come up with racy ads like this. Testimonial is one technique. Danica Patrick is actually still in this commercial endorsing Go Daddy. In previous commercials, sex appeal has been used to encourage viewers to go to GoDaddy.com for more footage of Danica Patrick in the shower. I'm not sure if this specific commercial uses sex appeal as a technique.
I've always resented the way Go Daddy objectifies women in their ads and commercials. While I dislike the nerd stereotype as well, this commercial is no exception. Bar Refaili is merely an object of desire for football fans and nerdy website builders. She is sexy, nothing less and nothing more. I also resent Go Daddy for transforming Danica Patrick, the only women winner of an IndyCar series, into a sex object in their commercials. Find a new angle, please.
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