It’s the sound. That wet, squelching, rhythmic noise that lasted for an eternity—or at least it felt like an eternity when you were sitting on your couch with your parents and a bowl of lukewarm spinach dip. The 2013 GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial, officially titled "Perfect Match," didn't just push the envelope. It shredded the envelope and threw it into a woodchipper.
Bar Refaeli, the world-renowned Israeli supermodel, and Jesse Heiman, a prolific character actor known as the "world's most famous extra," spent roughly ten seconds locked in a grotesque, close-up make-out session. It was high-definition. It was visceral. It was, according to almost every post-game poll that year, one of the most polarizing things to ever happen during a commercial break. But here’s the thing: even though it made us want to look away, it did exactly what GoDaddy wanted.
What Really Happened With That 2013 GoDaddy Super Bowl Commercial
If you ask Bob Parsons, the founder of GoDaddy at the time, he’d probably tell you the ad was a masterpiece. The company had built its entire brand on "shock and awe" marketing. Before 2013, they were famous (or infamous) for the "GoDaddy Girls"—Danica Patrick and Jillian Michaels wearing very little and suggesting that you "see more" on their website.
The 2013 spot was supposed to represent a pivot.
The agency behind it, Deutsch NY, wanted to show the two sides of GoDaddy. You had the "sexy" side, represented by Refaeli, and the "smart" side, represented by Heiman (the tech geek). By having them hook up, GoDaddy was supposedly demonstrating the perfect marriage of beauty and brains. It sounds like a standard marketing pitch in a boardroom, right? "We’ll merge the two pillars of our brand identity through a physical metaphor!"
Except the metaphor involved 45 takes of Heiman and Refaeli swapping spit.
Actually, the "making out" wasn't even the first version. CBS, the network broadcasting Super Bowl XLVII, actually rejected two earlier versions of the ad for being too suggestive. Think about that for a second. The version we got—the one that launched a thousand "I can't unsee that" tweets—was the tame version.
The Man, The Myth, The Extra
Jesse Heiman became an overnight sensation, but he wasn't new to the screen. If you look closely at movies like The Social Network or shows like Glee and The Big Bang Theory, you’ll see him. He’s usually in the background, holding a tray or sitting in a classroom.
Suddenly, he was the guy who kissed Bar Refaeli in front of 100 million people. Heiman handled the fame with a lot of grace, honestly. He did the talk show circuit, appeared on Jay Leno, and leaned into the "nerd who won" persona. But the cultural conversation wasn't really about him; it was about the sheer discomfort of the viewer.
Walter Isaacson or some other high-brow critic might call it "cringe comedy," but for GoDaddy, it was pure data.
Why the "Gross-Out" Factor Worked for Business
Most people hated it.
The Ad Meter from USA Today, which is basically the gold standard for Super Bowl commercial rankings, put the 2013 GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial dead last. People found it repulsive. They found it sexist. They found it unnecessary.
But check the numbers.
GoDaddy reported that the day after the Super Bowl, they had their best sales day ever. They saw a 45% increase in mobile customers and added 10,000 new customers in a single 24-hour window. Hosting sales jumped. Domain registrations spiked.
This brings up a massive point about Super Bowl advertising that most people get wrong. You aren't necessarily trying to make people like you. You are trying to make them remember you. In a sea of Clydesdales and celebrities eating Doritos, GoDaddy decided to be the annoying noise you couldn't ignore.
The Psychology of Discomfort
There is a specific neurological response to seeing something that triggers the "uncanny valley" or just general disgust. It creates a high-arousal state. When you are in that state, your brain is more likely to encode the brand name associated with the stimulus.
It’s kinda like how a car crash stays in your head longer than a sunset.
GoDaddy wasn't selling domains to the people who were offended. They were selling to the small percentage of those 100 million viewers who were currently thinking about starting a business and happened to need a website. For those people, the name "GoDaddy" was now seared into their frontal lobe.
The Pivot That Wasn't Really a Pivot
For years, GoDaddy faced accusations of being a "boys' club" company. Their ads were seen as alienating to women, who make up a huge portion of small business owners.
The 2013 ad was supposed to be the "bridge" to a more professional image. By including the "smart" side of the business (Heiman), they thought they were acknowledging their technical prowess. In reality, they just doubled down on the "hot girl" trope while adding a layer of awkwardness.
It wasn't until a few years later, when Blake Irving took over as CEO, that the company truly ditched the "shock" strategy. They moved toward ads that featured actual small business owners—bakers, carpenters, and tech startups. They stopped trying to gross us out and started trying to help us build things.
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Looking back, the 2013 ad feels like the "last hurrah" of an era of advertising that doesn't really exist anymore. You couldn't run that ad today. Social media would tear it apart for different reasons, and the brand risk would be too high. In 2013, Twitter was still a place where brands could "win" by being trending, even if the sentiment was negative. Today, negative sentiment is a toxic asset.
The Bar Refaeli Factor
We should probably talk about Bar Refaeli’s role in this. At the time, she was one of the biggest models on the planet. For her to agree to this spot was a huge get for GoDaddy.
Reports from the set suggest she was a total pro. She didn't treat it like a joke. She and Heiman worked on the "choreography" of the kiss to make it look as intense as the directors wanted. It wasn't an accident that it looked that way. It was a highly produced, highly deliberate attempt to create a "viral moment" before we even used that phrase for every single thing on the internet.
Lessons from the 2013 GoDaddy Super Bowl Commercial
If you’re a marketer or a business owner, you might look at this and think, "Hey, maybe I should do something controversial."
Wait.
The context has changed. GoDaddy had already spent a decade building a reputation as the "bad boy" of domain registrars. They had the infrastructure to handle the traffic spike and the brand equity to survive the backlash. Most companies would just die in the fire.
What You Can Actually Learn
- Polarization is a choice. If you try to please everyone, you often end up with a boring ad that no one remembers. GoDaddy chose to be hated by 90% of people so they could be remembered by 10%.
- The "Sound" matters. Most people don't remember what Jesse Heiman was wearing. They remember the sound. Sensory details—audio especially—are powerful triggers for memory.
- KPIs over Feelings. If GoDaddy had listened to the critics, they would have called the campaign a failure. But they looked at the sales data. Know which metric actually matters for your business before you launch a campaign.
- The "Shock" Shelf Life. You can only do this so many times. Eventually, the audience gets desensitized. GoDaddy eventually had to change because the "sexy/gross" schtick stopped moving the needle.
The 2013 GoDaddy Super Bowl commercial remains a fascinating artifact of a specific time in digital culture. It was the peak of the "nerd" era (think The Big Bang Theory popularity) clashing with the dying gasps of "lad-mag" advertising.
It wasn't pretty. It certainly wasn't "good" in a traditional sense. But we are still talking about it over a decade later. How many other commercials from that year can you even remember?
Probably none.
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Except maybe the Clydesdale one. But even that didn't have a squelching sound.
How to Apply This to Your Own Strategy
If you're looking to make a splash in your own industry, don't just go for shock value. Instead, look for the "uncomfortable truth" or the "unexpected pairing." You don't need a supermodel and a character actor to make an impact. You just need to be willing to stand out from the crowd, even if it means a few people might roll their eyes.
Just... maybe keep the kissing to a minimum.
Next steps:
- Audit your current marketing to see if it’s "too safe." Are you blending in with your competitors?
- Identify your "Smart" and "Sexy" brand pillars—what are the two contrasting values you bring to the table?
- Review your sales data alongside your social sentiment. Are the people complaining actually your customers?
- Watch the ad again on YouTube if you really want to test your stomach. It hasn't gotten any easier to watch with age.