The Seattle Seahawks weren’t the only big winners at this year’s Super Bowl.

Two small businesses saw their names in the year’s brightest lights during the game, thanks to promotions by two major brands who market online services to small businesses.

Puppets by Gwen was launched during the game during a 30-second commercial for GoDaddy, a radical shift from the company’s approach to using controversial sexually-provocative commercials during previous Super Bowls. Since last year, the company has expanded its domain registration business to include a suite of services for small businesses. The commercial featured new business owner Gwen Dean announcing to her boss (and 111 million viewers) that she is quitting her current job as a manufacturing engineer to follow her dream of turning her passion for puppetry into a full-time business.

Another small business, Oakland-based Goldie Blox, had a commercial for its “engineering toys for girls” air during the game. The company received the commercial production costs and air time as winner of Intuit’s Small Business, Big Game promotion. Like GoDaddy, Intuit has expanded its line of services for small businesses beyond a core product, its popular QuickBooks software.

As a 30-second commercial on the Superbowl cost advertisers around $4 million, the two small businesses reaped about $8 million worth of support from GoDaddy and Intuit.

Here are the two commercials:

Goldie Blox (Intuit)

Puppets by Gwen (GoDaddy)

 

(Photo via Goldie Blox)

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