Why is it Called GoDaddy?

Most people are familiar with the brand Godaddy, but few could actually describe what the company does. Their evolution from just a domain registrar, combined with their “what the heck” marketing philosphy has left many of us scratching our heads. Blake Irving, GoDaddy’s CEO, admits, “never has a company had as big a gap between what the ads say and what the company is.”

GoDaddy’s contreversial Super Bowl ads have without a doubt boosted their brand awareness, but their provocative advertising strategy has created a cloud of confusion around what the company actually does, while at times, offending their customer base. The attention-grabbing spots were blatant attempts to generate chatter about a product that its founding CEO, Bob Parsons, thought was boring.

In January 2013, Blake Irving, a former Microsoft veteran and chief product guy at Yahoo!, was hired as the new CEO to reposition their brand, boost their product innovation and expand in to new markets.

 Since steering the ship, Irving has taken the company public (again) and has acquired a handful of startups to digitalize and streamline time consuming activities for small business owners. Their new media strategy reveals unique stories behind small business owners, while weaving in key messaging on how their products and services help entrepreneurs fulfill their dreams, using the tagline “it’s go time.” Just give their Twitter feed a quick scroll, you’ll quickly recognize the consistency in their messaging and how they reveal client stories to educate and inspire those thinking about making the leap. They continue to simplify and advance their drag and drop website builder, have added marketing services around SEO, email marketing and just last week, they launched a new Pro service letting developers manage multiple WordPress sites from a single dashboard.

Why is GoDaddy Called Godaddy?

The company’s original name was called “Jomax Technologies,” named after an old dirt road Parsons used to drive by on the way to work. Two years after founding the company, Parsons wanted to change the name to something more fun and memorable.

An employee suggested the name Big Daddy, but the domain name was already taken. The reason? The movie “Big Daddy,” starring Adam Sandler. Parsons suggested GoDaddy to the team. Luckily, the .com was available and the name has stuck for just about two decades.

SEE ALSO: Why is Weebly Called Weebly?

So, what the heck is Godaddy?

With all the confusion, we’ll leave you with some clarity around Godaddy’s mission. According to their about us page,  “GoDaddy powers the world’s largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures. With more than 14 million customers worldwide and more than 63 million domain names under management, GoDaddy is the place people come to name their idea, build a professional website, attract customers and manage their work.”

Do you think renaming Godaddy would have expedited the rebranding process? Have you noticed the shift in Godaddy’s positioning since Irving became the new DADDY? Comment below! Thanks for reading Why is it called Godaddy! #whyisitcalledGodaddy