Like countless others, we we’re dumbfounded when we first viewed the clever, but misguided, Super Bowl commercial GoDaddy posted on YouTube last week.

Much of the outrage was directed at what some thought was the company’s implied endorsement of puppy mills. Our complaint was focused on the ad’s choice of a punch line that depended on portraying a small business owner as a heartless creep.

Within a few hours of posting it on YouTube, the ad was yanked and the company’s CEO, Blake Irving, was blogging his regrets. (And displaying why it’s important for a CEO to have a blog.)

Quote:

At the end of the day, our purpose at GoDaddy is to help small businesses around the world build a successful online presence. We hoped our ad would increase awareness of that cause. However, we underestimated the emotional response—and we heard that loud and clear. The net is we are pulling the ad from the Super Bowl. You’ll still see us in the Big Game this year, and we hope it makes you laugh.

While the commercial didn’t make me laugh out loud, it made me smile.

It was light enough to be a Super Bowl ad, but authentic enough to find resonance with small business owners. More importantly, it has the feel of authenticity: It does not say how great GoDaddy is nor does it promise to be a partner to small business owners.

Rather, it explains, in a simple to understand way, what GoDaddy does and why.

“At GoDaddy, we help business owners
find domains and build websites
to make what they do a little easier.”

Here is the ad, along with the script below the video.

Kudos, GoDaddy.

Voice-over script:

This man isn’t watching the game at a party right now. He will not see the puppy and celebrity ads. He will not be eating seven-layer dip. He is a business owner. Sacrifices must be made. At GoDaddy, we help business owners find domains and build websites to make what they do a little easier. We know what it’s like, guy who’s not at a party with his friends right now, and we raise a chip, with some dip on it, to you.