Go Daddy Announces a 1st in Its Storied Super Bowl History!

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Go Daddy has made a name for itself with its edgy, sometimes controversial Super Bowl commercials. Now the world's largest Web hosting provider and domain name registrar is bringing a partner to the world's largest advertising stage. For the first time ever, Go Daddy plans to share 30 seconds of its Super Bowl spotlight to tell the world about a new domain name extension -- .CO.

“hottest new Web address for branding your online presence.”

Short, meaningful and memorable, the new two-letter extension .CO is billed as the "hottest new Web address for branding your online presence." The company behind the domain, .CO Internet S.A.S., is looking to leverage Go Daddy's Super Bowl savvy to educate users about the many benefits of the .CO domain, which include a plethora of available, premium domain names that have long since been taken in the .COM realm. Since its July 20 launch, more than a half million .CO domain names have been registered. Heading into 2011, .CO Internet S.A.S. is looking to take it to the next level.

"We think this new commercial will do for the dotCO domain what our first Super Bowl commercial did for Go Daddy," said Go Daddy CEO and Founder Bob Parsons. The outspoken CEO is the mastermind behind Go Daddy's wildly successful Super Bowl campaigns. Over the last six years Go Daddy's ads helped take the domain name registrar from a 16 percent market share of new domain names in 2005 to its world-leading 50 percent market share today.

Go Daddy's risqué advertising approach has also helped create its iconic reputation. After the company's 2005 censorship controversy, the media coined the term "GoDaddy-esque," meaning commercials that are edgy, fun and slightly inappropriate. Historically, GoDaddy-esque ads feature Go Daddy Girls and entice viewers to go online to see the famed Internet-Only versions that pick up where the broadcast spots end.

"Like the rest of the world, we've watched Go Daddy translate its Super Bowl commercials into tremendous results, in terms of new customers, sales records and lots and lots of buzz," said Juan Diego Calle, CEO and Founder of .CO Internet S.A.S. "Our team was brainstorming ways to generate Go Daddy-like Super Bowl results to tell the world about the dotCO domain. Instead of trying to reinvent the magic, we came up with the simple idea to team up with Go Daddy ... and here we are!"

"Our dotCO commercial will be as GoDaddy-esque as any ad we've ever done," Parsons promised. "And I promise you this, it's going to be a commercial with a Super Bowl-sized twist ... and that's all I can say about it right now."

This year's Super Bowl is on the FOX television network, which is where Go Daddy's Super Bowl legend began. The broadcast commercial slots sold out months ahead of last year, a sign some say points to economic recovery. The Super Bowl will be the television commercial debut for the .CO domain, just as it was for Go Daddy. An estimated 100 million viewers are expected to watch the big game.

To see Go Daddy's Super Bowl commercials and photos, visit http://www.GoDaddy.com/SuperBowl.

To find out how you can register a .CO domain name, visit the Go Daddy .CO page.

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About The Go Daddy Group, Inc.

Go Daddy is a leading provider of services that enable individuals and businesses to establish, maintain and evolve an online presence. Go Daddy provides a variety of domain name registration plans and website design and hosting packages, as well as a broad array of on-demand services. These include products such as SSL Certificates, Domains by Proxy private registration, ecommerce website hosting, blog templates and blog software, podcast packages and online photo hosting. The Go Daddy Group has more than 44 million domain names under management. Go Daddy registers, renews or transfers a domain name every second. GoDaddy.com is the world’s largest Web hosting provider and is the world's No. 1 domain name registrar according to Name Intelligence, Inc. During the first half of 2010, The Go Daddy Group registered more than one-third of all new domain names created in the top six generic top-level domains, or gTLDs, including .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .mobi.