After months of back-and-forth and headline-grabbing public postulations, Go Daddy has finally made an official decision about Danica Patrick's future with its ad campaigns. In spite of cutting the classic Go Daddy girl out of its recent campaign, the company decided that Patrick will star in not one but two of its 2013 Super Bowl spots.
Patrick's Go Daddy future has been up in the air since June.
Here's the twisted timeline of Go Daddy's strange, public, but overall predictable decision-making process:
- June: Go Daddy decided that it was relying too much on sexy rather than substantive spots. So the company officially ditched its in-house team and hired Deutsch NY, an actual advertising agency, to create a more conservative advertising campaign.
- The next day, CMO Barb Rechterman told us that Danica Patrick, a loyal spokeswoman, wouldn't make the initial move with the company. "Our Go Daddy Girl is not in our new Olympics campaign," Rechterman told Business Insider. "Danica and Go Daddy have worked very well together, no doubt ... but we are going to make our initial shift without Danica." (Although Go Daddy reserved the right to bring her back.)
- This was awkward because Patrick had told AOL's Sporting News that there was "absolutely" a place for her in the new campaign.
- July: The new "conservative" and "tech focused" ads starred cleavage-heavy Charlene.
- September: Deutsch NY told us that it was working on the Go Daddy Super Bowl spot and was "exploring the option [to include Patrick], if there's a way to do that."
- Go Daddy immediately emailed us to say that Deutsch was NOT, in fact, locked in to do its Super Bowl ads. Patrick, and the shop, were up in the air.
- October: Weeks later, Go Daddy released a press release saying, oh nevermind, Deutsch is definitely doing our Super Bowl spots. The release also teased that the company couldn't decide if Patrick had a place in the ads.
- November: Go Daddy says what everyone was suspecting. Danica Patrick gets to keep her status as a Super Bowl-starring Go Daddy Girl.
This is reminiscent of when Priceline based an ad campaign on killing off Priceline Negotiator William Shatner only to bring him back to life seven months later.
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