Go Daddy Girls Add Sex Appeal to Domain-Naming Site

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., June 4, 2009— -- If you know anything at all about the Internet Web site GoDaddy.com, you probably heard it first from the "Go Daddy Girls" -- the busty babes who front the company on Internet and TV commercials.

The Go Daddy Girls don't say much -- if anything -- about what the company actually does. But that's just fine with Go Daddy's founder and chief executive Bob Parsons.

"To me, if somebody has a familiarity with GoDaddy.com and no idea what we do, I'd rather have that than no idea whatsoever," Parsons told ABC News, sitting at the conference table in his office here, where he does much of his work.

GoDaddy.com is an Internet services company with a core business of registering domain names. It also offers a wide array of Web-based services, such as building Web sites on line, which are hard to advertise and certainly not very sexy.

The phenomenon of the Go Daddy Girls started during the 2005 Super Bowl, when Parsons aired a commercial featuring a well-endowed woman who had a Janet Jackson-like wardrobe malfunction in front of an obviously uncomfortable older man.

"Our market share was 16 percent," Parsons said. "The week after that commercial, it was 25 percent worldwide. Now, if you were in my position, would you do the same thing again?"

That's what Parsons did -- again and again. Go Daddy is now the leading registrar of Internet domain names, registering a new one on the average of every second.

Parsons, 58, a big-game hunting, motorcycle-riding marine veteran, who wears a diamond earring, said he has made millions, lost millions and made millions again, taking business risks. Above all, he believes business should be interesting, fun and serve the customer.

"One of the things that I believe in is that if you run your business for the sole idea of making money, you can never be successful," he said. "If I go out there and I say, 'Let's deliver service that's going to wow everybody, let's change this industry, let's have better products, let's have lower prices, let's empower people.' Well, you know what? Everybody gets invested in that."

Parsons says customer service is the foundation of business. He sells his services at low prices and tries to ensure that each customer is satisfied. Every transaction -- even if it's just the $9.95-a-year promotion -- is followed up with a phone call from the customer service center, which is staffed by live human beings 24 hours a day.