GoDaddy pulls puppy ad - bowing to pressure or...?

We've all heard the saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

I say bullshit.

This is exactly the kind of ad that will turn off people who care about such issues, forever.

Personally, I don't forgive cruelty to puppies. I suspect there are others who feel the same.

Effective satire is hard work. Possibly the hardest type of comedy to get right. If you don't have the chops, in my opinion, you should probably stay out of Superbowl advertising.

The creative team should be remanded to watch 1000 episodes of The Daily Show before they are allowed to create again.

Some are genuinely ignorant and in love with the idea.

Last year I fought tooth and nail to not let our company release an ad where the premise includes a couple who get so excited about painting their living room that they "accidentally" get carried away and paint the dog blue too.

As soon as I saw the storyboards I started raising hell - we can't run this. We'll get skewered. No one "accidentally" paints a dog. They're going to want to know what kind of "paint" we used.

They let it roll, and sure enough we were apologizing left and right before it was yanked. We know as well as anyone - sometimes when you love it, you refuse to see another perspective until it's damn near too late.

If you want to be funny, you have to ground it in reality.

Unfortunately, the creatives here grounded it in a very controversial reality - puppy mills where dogs are often caged, malnourished, weak, diseased, etc.

A friend of mine bought a Bernese Mountain Dog from a breeder and he died at 9-10 months from breeding defects that should have been disclosed or treated.

So yes, they are indeed getting publicity. But if that friend of mine sees that puppy mill commercial, is she going to ever buy a GoDaddy domain? Not a chance in hell. They basically, intentionally or not, rubbed salt in a wound.

People LOVE their pets - there's a reason it's a multi-billion dollar industry.

I understand polarizing to find your tribe - this to me smacks of either useless controversy or worse, uninformed pot shots.

GoDaddy also caught flack years ago for its (now ex) CEO killing baby elephants on hunting safaris. Looks like they're still working hard to win the hearts of animal lovers.

I LOVE animals. That's why I'm a vegetarian.

-Ray Edwards

I refuse to be a GoDaddy customer if I can help it because of this kind of crap in the past.

I'm sure their strategy was to generate more publicity by pulling it, but since the company has a strong connection with animal cruelty thanks to its ex-CEO, I imagine this will do more harm than good – just like in Angie's story.

What gross bunch at GoDaddy.

This firm just keeps on making stupid mistakes.

The first was all those sexist commercials.

All my domains used to be housed there. After I viewed the first commercial... I moved them all.

They get none of my business, nor the business of those I know and coach.

I remember years ago Chevy Chase was in a Doritos commercial wherein he swooped in on a rope like Tarzan knocking down a little old lady to get the chips.

Bad, bad, bad. Drove sales down and people hated him and the chips for a while.

I guess Frito-Lays should'a read some of the threads on here. They would have known to test first.

ELMO

I don't find it offensive at all - why are people so picky