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Podcast Episode Summary: How GoDaddy Created The Best Super Bowl Ad With Walton Goggins
Podcast Details
- Title: Marketing Trends
- Host: Stephanie Postles
- Episode Title: How GoDaddy Created The Best Super Bowl Ad With Walton Goggins
- Guest: Fara Howard, CMO of GoDaddy
Episode Overview In this episode, Fara Howard, the Chief Marketing Officer of GoDaddy, discusses the strategic planning and execution behind GoDaddy's notable Super Bowl campaign featuring actor Walton Goggins. The conversation delves into how they transformed a complex AI product into a relatable and memorable message, emphasizing the importance of storytelling, data, and the human touch in marketing.
Key Themes and Discussions
- Return to the Super Bowl
- GoDaddy had not participated in the Super Bowl for eight years.
- The decision to return was driven by the launch of GoDaddy Airo, an innovative AI product that warranted a significant marketing push.
- Marketing Strategy
- Year-Long Campaign: Rather than treating the Super Bowl as a one-time event, GoDaddy aimed to build a comprehensive, year-long marketing strategy.
- Celebrity Partnership: Walton Goggins was chosen not just as an endorser but as a product user, aligning him authentically with the brand.
- GoDaddy Airo
- Product Overview: GoDaddy Airo assists users in creating their online presence by dynamically building websites and other digital assets based on AI.
- User-Friendly Experience: The product is designed to empower users, making them feel capable and confident in their entrepreneurial endeavors.
- Storytelling and Data Balance
- Successful marketing requires a balance of data-driven insights and compelling storytelling.
- Fara emphasizes that simplicity and relatability are critical in B2B marketing, particularly when introducing new products.
- Company Culture and Marketing
- Fara believes in a company culture that encourages experimentation and is not afraid of failure.
- She shares insights into how they foster a supportive environment for creative risks.
Key Moments
- 00:00: Introduction of Fara Howard and discussion of GoDaddy's Super Bowl return.
- 01:37: Evolution of GoDaddy’s Super Bowl advertising strategy over the years.
- 03:51: Introduction to GoDaddy Airo and its unique features.
- 09:30: The rationale behind choosing Walton Goggins for the Super Bowl spot.
- 26:22: Discussion on the intersection of data and creativity in marketing.
Insights for Marketers
- Simplicity as a Superpower: In B2B, simplifying complex products into relatable stories is key.
- Be Cautious of Trends: Relying too heavily on current trends can dilute a brand’s unique voice and message.
- Empower Users: Tools like GoDaddy Airo should enhance user capabilities rather than replacing their decision-making processes.
- Foster a Culture of Experimentation: Encouraging team members to share both successes and failures promotes innovation and learning.
Personal Insights from Fara Howard
- She emphasizes the importance of personal connection in work culture and finding the right fit within an organizational environment.
- Balancing family life with professional commitments through clear boundaries and prioritization.
Conclusion This episode offers valuable insights into the strategic thinking behind a successful Super Bowl campaign, highlighting the importance of creativity, data, and a supportive company culture in driving marketing success. Fara Howard’s experiences and perspectives serve as a guide for marketers navigating the complexities of modern advertising.
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*For more insights and to listen to the episode, visit [Marketing Trends](https://mission.org/). This episode was brought to you by Lightricks, creators of LTX, the all-in-one creative suite for AI-driven video production.*
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00GoDaddy had not been in the Super Bowl for eight years. I mean, what, 30-second spot, probably$7 to$10 million. We can't just mess around and just have like one 30-second spot here. A lot of brands treat Super Bowl as a moment, but that moment goes so fast. So we went for it. We're like, we're going to get more than the Super Bowl. We're going to build a year-long campaign. And we couldn't have picked a better partner. I am an actor, but guess what? I'm also a business owner. Walton Goggins is our partner for the Super Bowl and for our campaign throughout 2025. And we cannot say enough good things about him.
0:33We don't believe in hiring endorsement talent or celebrities who are just going to be spokespeople for the brand. We want them to use the product. So what do you look at that you think maybe most marketers are overlooking?
0:47Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Marketing Trends. This is your host, Stephanie Postles. And today I am so excited to have Farrah Howard here in the studio, the chief marketing officer at GoDaddy. Farrah, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I love finding out that you were in my hood, basically, kind of. Right. Come over. Let's do this here. This is so much better. So I want to start with the big bang that you guys made this year when it came to the Super Bowl and GoDaddy. And I want to start here because, one, I think the way you all structured what you did was brilliant and you were missing for many years from Super Bowl.
1:22And so I want to start there with what happened with Super Bowl this year. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe let's start with our absence. So GoDaddy had not been in the Super Bowl for eight years. So an eight year hiatus. And that was an intentional hiatus. When GoDaddy was at the Super Bowl, we were a very different company. We sold domains. We advertised in ways that were quite different than the way we showed up this year. but my assertion and I joined six years ago was that there would be a phenomenal time for us to go back to the Super Bowl but it had to be the right time and the linchpin was product like did we have a product story that warranted being told on the biggest stage in America and this year we we do and we did and so we came back to the Super Bowl and it was an incredibly exciting ride.
2:16Okay. So you mentioned before this time period, you had a very different set of Super Bowl ads. Like I want to paint the before and now picture. Like what kind of Super Bowl ads were you running just high level? Like what was kind of like the brand like, and obviously it was like very much about domains, but paint the picture of history before you. Sure. I'll talk about the outcomes and then I'll talk about how, you know, GoDaddy has the highest brand awareness in our sector. and the prior GoDaddy team did that by showing up in really loud, periodically bombastic ways in the Super Bowl and they got a tremendous amount of attention.
2:53Initially, that really got their name on the map. In fact, if you ask a lot of people, do you know GoDaddy? They'll say yes. If you say, do you know what GoDaddy does? They may say, yeah, they sell domains. And if you say, do you know what else? They may say no. And so, you know, that's where our job comes in now or my team's job comes in now, which is how do we ensure that the next generation and the prior generation of GoDaddy customers know all the new and different types of jobs that we can do for them. And there's a lot that we can learn from what we did before. We showed up in ways that weren't innovative and bold.
3:29And for us, making certain that we showed up in a way that was memorable was critically important. And so we didn't enter this year's Super Bowl lightly. Number one, we had the right product. So we belonged at the Super Bowl. But we had to spend a tremendous amount of time thinking about how we told that story so that people were like, oh, that's a different GoDaddy. But representative of where we'd been in the past, because we're certainly not abandoning where we came from. We're building upon it. Why I love this is because I think so many companies are in the position that you all were in, where it's like everyone knows this company and this name.
4:05And now there's a lot of new products coming out that they're not known for. and how to find awareness for these like new products and not just being like, oh yeah, I'm GoDaddy. I just, in this big thing, it's like, no, there's other things you should look at and how to figure out the right messaging to get people to see you in that way without losing your past and what's probably also still working. So how did you guys think about that storytelling process? I think the best way to answer that question is to talk for just a minute on GoDaddy Arrow. So GoDaddy Arrow, it's more than a product. It's an experience that's enabled by AI.
4:34So the way most of our customers and over 3 million people have to date experience aero is they do so by buying a domain. And that's what we've been historically known for, right? You've got an idea. You're like, you know, Stephanie, maybe you're a baker on the side. You're like, Stephanie Sweets ATX, is that available? I go to GoDaddy.com, I type that in. And what happens now with GoDaddy aero is maybe you don't even have a name for your business, but you've got an idea. AI can help. As soon as that domain is identified for you, then GoDaddy Aero AI goes to work and starts dynamically building your website, builds you a social media calendar, it starts to create a logo for you.
5:16And what's so innovative about that is you can build on top of that. So, yes, the AI gets you started, it saves you time, it helps you find customers, but ultimately the power in it is you and how you make it unique. And so if I go all the way back to where we came from, we're the number one player in the domain space. People know us in that way. And now our history connects to our future. Right? You buy a domain and you get so much more than you ever expected. Well, I think my job and my team's job as marketers is to help set expectations for customers on all the things they could get if they chose to work with us, if they chose to have us as their business partner.
5:56And so really putting the product experience in the middle of the story has been a huge focus for our team. Yeah, it's so fun thinking about like, it's like a business in a box, whereas most people right now, even when they're starting, if I were to think about like starting a new business without something like this, it would be a lot of tools that you're kind of like tying together in weird ways, you know, and a piece is always probably missing. And you're like, okay, that one's hard. I don't know how to do. Right. So it sits on your desk or, you know, in your mind or on the notes tab in your phone in perpetuity, right?
6:25Because you're like, it's hard. I'm not going to do it. Yeah. Okay. So y 'all were coming out with this new product that had you talked much about it before Super Bowl? We launched GoDaddy Arrow in November, 2023. Oh, okay. And we started to advertise it in earnest really in the beginning of 2024 and with a lot of experimentation. Like we are absolutely in experimentation culture. So as the product team was building the experience, we were concurrently figuring out what message works. How do you advertise it? Where do you advertise it? But we hadn't gone to market in a way where we were reaching hundreds of millions of customers.
7:06And our Super Bowl, that was really the big moment for us. When you were kind of like slowly launching this, was there anything, I think at one point you mentioned about like something with your website. There's just like a funny, like, oops, maybe that was too fast or, you know, we shouldn't have done it that way. Any learning lessons? Oh, absolutely. And actually, that learning happened for me long before Arrow, but during my GoDaddy tenure. So I joined GoDaddy, like I said, six years ago. And probably a year and a half in to my career at GoDaddy, we were relaunching our website product. And it was dramatically improved, so much so that everyone was so excited about it that we permitted the website experience on GoDaddy.com to block our proverbial sun.
7:48Really, if you wanted to buy a domain, all of a sudden, it was much harder to find that context because we were yelling websites from every pixel on GoDaddy.com. And what we learned was we need to strike a balance, right? Don't abandon what we're known for. Don't make it hard for customers to find the primary thing that they've been coming to you for years. What you have to figure out is how the additional new experiences can be shared either in an adjacent capacity or some sort of progressive disclosure. And so that was really important for us with Arrow. If any of the listeners came to GoDaddy.com in and around the Super Bowl, you still would have seen a huge search box at the top of GoDaddy.com.
8:30And that is where a sizable amount of our traffic goes. It's people looking for domains. So we knew we had to make it easy for people who just wanted a domain to go and buy that. But we also spent a tremendous amount of time explaining, presenting, showcasing Arrow and all the capabilities that it could deliver for customers. But we look at website data every minute, every hour, every day. And so we're constantly iterating and changing. The experience back in 2020 took us a day or two to realize, wait a minute, you know, traffic isn't moving through the website the way that we expect or traffic is bouncing, right, which is the worst case scenario.
9:11they're coming and they're not finding what they're looking for and they leave, heaven forbid, go to a competitor. And so we're constantly identifying those types of big signals to make certain that we're maximizing the customer experience. And when people come, we help them find what they're looking for. Okay. So back to the Super Bowl now. I mean, you partnered with a celebrity this year. We did. It's pretty fun. I want to hear more about this because your partnership structure just seemed very unique and actually like a partnership and long term and he's a customer of Arrow. And like, so I want to kind of dig into that whole piece.
9:44I could talk about this for a long time. So keep me in check. I'll break it into chapters. Okay. So our celebrity, and I think it's really important to call it out in case anyone missed it. Walton Goggins is our partner for the Super Bowl and for our campaign throughout 2025. And we cannot say enough good things about him. He is such a such a great human, so bright, so charismatic and so deeply invested in what it means to be a small business owner that we we couldn't have picked a better partner. And we did a tremendous amount of diligence to make certain that we made a good choice. And so we knew as we started the partnership, like this is a good thing.
10:26How do you know? I want to hear about this diligence. Like how I've worked with some celebrities before and I feel like I don't know that it was a bad choice until all the way in it. Yeah. I mean, again, I might be telling you and your listeners things that they know. You get as much data as you possibly can, first and foremost, and loads of reports on sentiment and history, and you watch a tremendous amount of content. But that is just data and humans are unpredictable, Right. So you spend some time talking to them and their and their agent and their teams. And then you start to validate the quant with the qual.
11:03Right. Or the the math with the magic. And you're like, OK, there's there there. And so there were a lot of conversations that happened in advance. And what really was important to us was we've historically told stories of customers. Right. Like I believe that the most powerful branding doesn't come from my team telling you about the brand, but from customers telling you about the brand and their experience. So we don't believe in hiring endorsement talent or celebrities who are just going to be spokespeople for the brand. We want them to use the product. And so for us, learning about Walton's entrepreneurial experience and just his conviction around small business was of paramount importance.
11:44And then I'll talk more about how the campaign came to life. But in some of those early conversations, jumping on the phone with him, he was like, this product is blowing my mind. Like, I can't believe what you guys are doing for small business. And I know that might sound like, you know, small potatoes, but honestly, to have a celebrity immediately, even in advance of a contract being signed, spend time with your product, make certain that it works for him and that he gets it and he's excited about it. That's gold. I haven't heard that. And I work with a lot of large companies. I haven't heard of this structure before of like a true partner.
12:21That's why I found this one so interesting. My team called me right after that meeting and they were like, oh, we wish you were on that call. Like it was amazing. His enthusiasm for what we're trying to do, like he gets what we're trying to do. He cares. He's used the product. He has product feedback for us. We're like, are you kidding me? This is exactly what we were hoping would transpire. But, you know, hope isn't a strategy and Celebrities are busy. And so we were thrilled because the premise of what we did at the Super Bowl was we wanted an ultimate demonstration of what Arrow could do. And a demonstration means we need someone running a business with great success powered by Arrow.
13:05So we asked Walton, hey, what ideas do you have? And we'll partner with you and help bring your business to life. And he was all in. He loved the idea of utilizing his name. He would say himself, and he said this video he sent us for a company town hall. He's like, hey, you might know my face, but you might not know my name. It's Walton Goggins. You're going to know my name. And the brand that we built with him, Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses or GogginsGoggles.com, put his name at the forefront with a tremendous amount of ridiculous alliteration and real beautiful product. And it took off. And so then when we told the story of Arrow being the power behind it, as we approached the Super Bowl, the alchemy behind what he'd done, what consumers had seen as part of like the cultural zeitgeist blowing up folks TikToks.
13:59And then we talked about, hey, Arrow was the wind at his back, really created powerful moments for us to tell stories that really resonated with customers. And to have a celebrity who, I mean, you can hear when he talks about the product, not just in the advertising, but when he talks to us, when he's on social media, like he's an earnest advocate of what the experience can do for small business, which is just awesome. Yeah. I mean, customers are looking for that level of authenticity. And I think it is clear when you have an ad with just some big personality. And then you're like, you don't even know what that IT technology is.
14:40You're just a cool face talking about it. And so I think that probably I'm guessing landed well. And I did watch the commercial, which we'll add that in for sure. So tell me more about like the creation process, because I found it to have a lot of great emotions. It was encouraging. It was building confidence. It was a little funny. Like it had like everything in it that I thought was perfect for an entrepreneur to hear. I mean, I'm talking for myself. I was like, oh, this is inspiring and funny and like, I want to just go build another business. Which one should I build? Right. So tell me more about like, how did that creativity and storytelling come to be?
15:10Yeah, the creative process is, I mean, as you know, and as you talk about often, I mean, it is a complex process, but the best creative is grounded in a human insight that's really hard to see. And once you hear it, you're like, oh my gosh, like that is the thing. And so maybe to explain the creative process, I should start with the insight itself. And the insight that we'd heard for years was small business owners know how to do their thing, right? They know how to spend time with other marketers and share their learnings. They know how to make bagels, fix pipes, do your landscaping, but they don't know how to do all the digital things that are required to in this day and age to help them run their business.
15:57And for years, we solved those problems in pieces, right? You talked about like, oh my gosh, the tools out there are pretty challenging and complex. Well, now with GoDaddy Arrow, this experience stitches all those tools together. And ultimately for small business owners, it helps them look like they know what they're doing. And we spent a lot of time talking about that premise where like, this is actually it's like confidence booster for them, right? You use this experience and you're like, wow, that was easier than I thought. And then you do the next thing that you thought was hard and it's easier than you thought.
16:29And the next thing and the next thing. And ultimately, like I said, you save time, you get customers, but you build incredible confidence. So we spent a lot of time saying, okay, this like with GoDaddy Arrow, it's like, you know what you're doing. Yeah. Makes you look like you know what you're doing. We wanted to make certain number one, that that landed positively with consumers, that they heard that as winded their back or confidence, not as a, you don't know what you're doing, which is absolutely not what we meant. We meant the former. Great news. The former landed, right? Yeah. How'd you know it would land?
17:01Did you do any testing? We did. Yeah. We did a lot of concept testing long before we hired Walton or started doing the full campaign planning. Does the premise make sense? We knew psychologically it did because we talked to hundreds of customers over the years and we sought to solve that problem for them with GoDaddy Arrow. That was part of our product brief. So then we're like, all right, is there, there there with creative. And as soon as there was, that's when we started to think through the premise of, all right, how can a celebrity help us amplify that message? Because for us, amplification or said in English, like getting the word out there is so important.
17:39Like the Super Bowl is a great tactic to get the word out there. A celebrity who is incredibly talented and in the midst of a meteoric rise, ride and rise, can absolutely help. And so that's when we started to talk to Walton and then started actively working on the story that we would tell at the Super Bowl and the story beyond. And I won't, you know, I'm sure we can unpack this further. But one of the things that I think my team did magically was we didn't just think about the Super Bowl moment. We thought about the whole campaign and for what it's worth. We shot over, I think it was that, look at the cuts of the creative.
18:17I think it's over 20 pieces of creative in four days with Walton Goggins. Yeah. So, you know, we've got content for days now, which is great because we did the pre-work to ensure that the premise made sense for consumers. And we had great confidence in Walton. So we went for it. We're like, we're going to get more than the Super Bowl. We're going to build a year-long campaign. Yep. Yeah. And that's why I think that structure is so interesting because you look at a lot of these Super Bowl commercials. I mean, what, 30 seconds bought, probably seven to$10 million, I guess, is the rate. Maybe you would probably know better than me.
18:51Yeah, they said seven to eight. And I think it depends on the time in which you buy. Yeah. And most times when you see those 30 second spots, you don't really see much after that. You might see that ad again, but you don't see a whole cohesive marketing strategy that I have seen. Like a lot of bigger brands like spend it and then it's like kind of done. And so I love it's like you all got all this extra content. You have this partnership. You have a customer. You have someone who's like helping you also build this brand around this new product. It was for us, it was I wouldn't call it a gamble because it was substantiated by data, but it was it wasn't is a different approach.
19:25You know, a lot of brands treat Super Bowl as a moment, either because it's expensive or because the expectations at Super Bowl are different. Like an ad is, you know, as my I'll paraphrase because there might be some colorful language and my creative director's articulation of what a Super Bowl ad is supposed to do. But it's supposed to make you laugh, cry or blow your mind. You can imagine how he might have talked about that. And if you could do two out of three, that's awesome. But of course, we focused on laugh, right? We believe that the AI technology is incredibly powerful. But what it does is it lightens the load of small business owners, right?
20:01So let's bring levity to this conversation. There are a lot of ads that are there to generate laughs. And the brand might sit in the background. For us, like we wanted to drive attention through humor with a celebrity and a story that had our product in the middle of it. But that moment goes so fast. Right. And so for us, we're like, all right, we got to keep telling that story after the Super Bowl. Yeah. It also feels like scrappy entrepreneur mindset, which is also probably why I love it, because it also then connects to what you're doing. A hundred percent. We can't just mess around and just have like one 30 second spot here.
20:33Let's make this work. That is totally our culture. and and like i said fortunately for us that is walton i mean to see him on set was number one a master class in in acting like to get to watch him coach himself it was he'd run you know run through a set of lines and he was like oh no i'm doing that again like that's got to be done again and he worked his butt off no one worked harder that day than him and that is totally our culture We're like, how much content can we make in four days? Everyone, you will not sleep until Saturday. But on Saturday, it's going to be amazing. And everyone was all in and so excited about it.
21:13But yes, we're a scrappy place. So thanks for noticing it. Yeah, I love it. All right, so when talking about the scrappiness, the entrepreneurial hustle, if I'm listening, anyone who's listening who's like a small business owner, let's just say maybe under 10 million. And they're like in revenue. And they're trying to think, how do I apply these principles with investing in a way that compounds over time? We were like, I did this one thing and now it's working for a long time. What would you advise someone in that position? What I would say is there are a tremendous amount of parallels between big business and small business.
21:46And it all focuses on the fact that business is unpredictable, right? And so have a plan, right? So our plan was we wanted to maximize the amount of stories we could tell about Goggins Goggles and Walton Goggins and his relationship with Arrow. And so we planned during a very small window of time to capture a tremendous amount of content. And that content's cut in lots of different ways. A small business could do exactly the same thing. Now, that doesn't mean go out and hire Walton Goggins, although he's lovely. You guys should give him a call. But it means if you're building, let's say that you're capturing content for your bakery, right?
22:26Don't capture just what you need that week. Capture what you think you could utilize over a longer period of time. And remember that stills and video can be intermixed. As you think about channels, you probably spend a lot of time on social. So having a lot of creative at the ready enables you to really iterate and be flexible. And that's what we did. We did it on a grander scale from a production standpoint. But my key message to small businesses is have a plan. Know the unpredictable may occur. But the more you've got available to work with, the more you can iterate and learn and ultimately grow, which is your goal.
23:06Yeah. I think right now we're in this like entrepreneurial revolution just because all these tools, it's like everything's like decentralized. And you can access so many things in a way that 10 years ago, you'd had to have an engineer and have a team and do all these things. And now it's like, oh, you can just build a whole business just with, you know, one company and get it all done. And it's a very new space, which is exciting to see what people can do with kind of so little. Absolutely. So I want to go into your background a bit now, because I'm sure you have a lot that's been influencing you ever since you've been in marketing.
23:36You were at some pretty big companies. I think it was like Gatorade, Dell, Vans. And so I would just love to hear some lessons that, you know, you've acquired from being in those different, very large companies to then coming into where you're at now at GoDaddy. What's interesting. So I've had the opportunity to work at multiple companies and in different industries, but always in the same function. So I've been a lifelong marketer. And what is what's surprising to me as I look back on the 25-ish years of being a marketer is the fundamentals are actually incredibly similar. Right. So I'll go all the way back.
24:10My very first job out of graduate school was at Gatorade. And what Gatorade taught me was be obsessed with your customer. Like I remember the amount of times that I would spend at Gatorade's lab out in Barrington, Illinois, watching people on the treadmill, figuring out at what level, you know, their depletion or dehydration began. Wow. And what role did Gatorade play in helping solve that problem for them? And there were a few points where, you know, I was either watching athletes on a treadmill or on the sidelines of games being like, shouldn't I be at my computer, like producing work? And the answer is no, that that happens after you understand the customer.
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24:51Yeah. And so like really spending time putting yourself in their shoes, watching them, talking to them, consuming information that's applicable in every single industry. Yeah. And so like that's a really big learning for me that I carry to every job, know your customer. And then, you know, the conversation we were having earlier around insights, universal, good creative cannot be made without a great insight. Yeah. So what, what do you look at that you think maybe most marketers are overlooking? Because I know before you were like, I'm a different kind of creative. I'm like a mix of like using metrics and storytelling and blending it together, but you're not just one or the other.
25:28And so what do you think people are missing if they're on either side of those, like way too quantitative or way too, you know? Yeah. Yeah. What's missing? I often talk about the continuum of math and magic, right? And marketing has both. And I've been so lucky throughout my career to be in situations where I get to move across that continuum. People who spend all their time thinking about the magic, right? Like how do you tell a story that breaks through? If you're not connected to the business or don't have relationships that help you connect to the business and to the outcomes associated with that creative, it's hard to get permission to go make the next round of creative.
26:08Because when I entered marketing and maybe a brief anecdotal story, my husband is also a marketer. And conversations at dinner must just be all marketing. Right. As my three boys are like, mom, dad, you're killing me. But he didn't start as a marketer. So I'm answering your question in a securitist way. But I went into marketing. He went into finance and strategy and he gave me a hard time. He's like, what do you do at work? Like you draw things like you make pictures. And I was like, time out, buddy. Like my job is to actually translate complex business ideas into simple messages that consumers can understand.
26:42Then I have to measure it to get permission to do it again. So if all you're doing is the math and you don't understand the magic, you may put yourself in a situation where you're just perpetually doing the same things over and over. If all you know is the magic and you can't measure it, you may not be able to have the fodder to have the conversations with the people who create the fuel, aka the money, to go do more of it. So I'm always uncomfortable in a good way at work. I'm always pushing myself really hard into the magic part, and I'm not a creative, a traditional creative, or all the way into the math part, and I'm not, you know, I'm not a quant.
27:21I'm, you know, and I'm using terms that may be negatively connoted. For me, they're very positively connoted. I would love to be able to sit at those polls. I don't. What I would tell marketers is be uncomfortable, like travel back and forth between those polls because it will make you better at your job because the expectations are no longer like, and they never were. I go to my desk and draw pictures, right? The expectation is you have to be able to bring creativity that fuels the business and work across that continuum. Yeah, that is also a theme that I've heard over this past couple months from most CMOs coming on of like, it's a different world now.
27:59And you need to be able to play in these middle spaces and connect the dots in ways that maybe before you didn't have to before you could be very technical with the analytics of something or just very creative. And it's now the people who are able to see their bigger, the bigger vision connected to the company and profit and know where they're heading. Like that's the ones that seem like they're the most valuable marketers right now. I agree. And to be clear, like I am by no means superhuman. I just have a superhuman team. Like the, you know, the older I get and the longer I work, the more I realize the criticality of depending on people who are experts in their craft.
28:34Right. Like I need people who are incredibly analytical. I need people who are incredibly creative. And my job is to help connect them, help them figure out how to speak the same language. I think a lot of my job is translator and translator and, you know, someone who trusts, right? Like my job is to trust those who are really good at their job to go do their job because the stakes just keep getting higher and higher for all of us. Yep. Yeah. I've seen that. When we first started Mission, this company, we had a podcast that we launched and Alec Baldwin was hosting it and we did the whole celebrity thing and we had a really big, large tech company sponsoring it for a very large amount.
29:10and from the outside it would have looked like so much magic it was just winning awards and topping charts and everyone loved it but the magic was only in one area without the metrics tied to it and after a year it's like that contract stopped and i remember being like what happened here from the outside this is so magical and it was like winning from every angle but then i was like oh wait this company they had a different set of metrics that we were not even thinking about because we were so caught up in the magic of the experience so i love that i love just thinking of those two worlds and how to pull them together cohesively.
29:41When it comes to, I mean, moving throughout roles, because a lot of people right now, I think are looking for new roles in this world. The job market is interesting. And so I'd love to hear lessons from you, like traveling from these different companies. Was there ever a time where you're like, oh, this is not a good fit. This did not work out well. Or, you know, I wouldn't do this again as I enter into another company. Yes, for certain. And I'm pausing just because I have a lot of thoughts on this. I have had the opportunity to work in similar roles, but very different companies and cultures.
30:12And I talk to a lot of young people. And maybe I just, because I'm old, everyone's younger than me. But I talk to a lot of people who are thinking either about how to start their career or how to transition in their career to other jobs. And I often talk about a pretty simple formula that I've used. And I've used it with success and sometimes not. I try to think about what I'm doing, who I'm doing it with and for. And then people always think about the compensation piece as well. Those three factors all have to be at play when you think about your role. And there have been times in my career where I compromised on one.
30:52And it had an impact on my satisfaction and happiness in the role. One of the things I've learned throughout my career is who I work for and with matters deeply to me. and I want to be able to bring my whole quirky self to work every day. Like I don't want to have to have a work personality or put aside, you know, my communication style to fit a specific culture. And I have taken some roles in my career where I've stepped in. I've compromised on culture. I've compromised on that second vector of who I work for and with. And those have been, you know, shorter stints in my career as a result. For me, I've learned that people in that the alchemy piece is of paramount importance.
31:32So I always ask people, like, think about what's most important to you when you're thinking about jobs. Like, is this a point in your life where you really have to think about financial stability and that the finance piece is critically important? Or are you trying to learn new skills and the work is of paramount importance? For me, you know, at this point in my life, yeah, I pick people and culture over everything. But I think those three vectors often shift around. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, how do you pick your clients? And I was like, if I would be friends with them.
32:04And they're like, I think that's not a good metric. I'm like, that's the phase of life I'm in now. Can we be friends? Can we hang out? Can we have a good time? And then can we build cool shit together? Like, that's what I want to do. It's less about just getting money anymore. It's more of like optimizing for relationships. Right. And if one of those vectors is really working, then the other two usually follow. All right. So you mentioned a formula for when you're thinking about new roles, entering into new cultures and companies. Is there a time, like tell me about a time when it didn't work for you?
32:29Yeah, I'll talk about a time. And I say all this with deep respect for the brand and the people that I worked with there. I'll talk about my transition to Vans. So I had been at Dell for 11 years and I loved my time at Dell. Lots of different jobs with people that I really connected with, you know, solving hard problems. And the work was incredibly gratifying. But the work was no longer as consumer-centric as it had been. You know, long story short, Dell was privatizing at that point in time and very focused on B2B. And I'm very much a B2C marketer. And just as context, even though people think of GoDaddy as B2B, we go to market B2B to C, right?
33:08Like we really utilize consumer tactics and go into market, which totally works for me. So for me, the number one vector was I want to be working in a space where I can leverage my strength in consumer marketing. and I connected with the CEO of Vans and we really connected. Kevin Bailey, if you're listening to this podcast, you know how much I love you and love working for you. And Kevin and I spent a lot of time talking together about the challenges at Vans and I was all in on the work. I was like, yes, this is exactly the work I want to do. They were about to do a massive celebration of their customers for their 50th anniversary.
33:45And I was like, customers in the center, huge global anniversary of a beautiful brand I'm in. And I got to Vans and I was a cultural misfit. Truly, I'll call it what it is. Most of the marketers were deeply steeped in the action sports culture in skate and surf. I'm very bad at both. I like to surf. I'm a terrible skater, as those who worked with me at Vans can attest. And I really worked to understand the space. To my earlier context on Gatorade, like went to all the events, talked to all the athletes, did a ton of listening, less talking, more hearing. But I still didn't fully belong. And that's a culture where belonging is really important.
34:29I was there for three years. I was so proud of the work that we did. And we made beautiful, creative and content and really powered the business in meaningful ways. But I never really felt like I fit. And to me, that matters. You know, to me, I want to be part of the cultural fabric of the company that I'm at. And I felt like a guest or a visitor. And so it was a super hard decision. But after three years, despite the success that my team and I had had there, I decided to leave. And it was hard. I still love the brand. I love a lot of the people that I worked with. But I realized that I'd over pivoted on the what I was doing instead of the who I was doing it with and for.
35:07And I needed to honor that. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Powerful and good reminder. switching through things. Okay. So now before I move on to my next section, I want Rose, producer Rose, who's sitting on there, new thing we're trying out. Is there anything you want to add? Yes. I'm so curious as a data-driven leader, when you're wanting to push creatives, maybe storytellers that are more intimidated by data, you want to push them creatively, but you also want to establish a culture of psychological safety. How do you go about like aligning a team and coaching them to kind of be on the same page in that way.
35:41Yeah. I love this question. The question around, you know, how do you ultimately, how do you create permission for people to fail? Right. How do you remove the negative stereotypes of failure? Number one, I think as a leader, it's important for me to own my failures publicly and talk about them and talk about them early and often. I've had lots of experiences on the heels of Super Bowl things that I wish that I personally had decided differently. But, you know, So hindsight is hindsight. So I use the data, own it, talk about it, move forward. I'm lucky that I work in a culture that's engineering based.
36:12And engineering is a like iterate quickly, fail fast, and then go iterate again. And so dropping our creative teams into spaces where they can see the data, understand, and then pivot has been really valuable as well. But you just, I mean, the short answer is you have to remove the stigma that failure is bad. because if you don't fail, you actually never change and you never do anything differently. And yeah, I've worked in spaces throughout my career where it's a just play it safe. And you spend so much time in politics and protecting your number and not sharing data. And the best work happens when you take massive swings and you get a little bit further forward and you learn some things that you could have done differently so that you can do it even better next time.
37:01I guess lastly, you need to hire people who have some sense of humility and then can accept that level of candor and failure. The culture that I work in today is very direct, but also kind. And so it's not like you have to wear a shield to work every day, but you have to be like, oh, man, I could have done better there and be able to say that. But the best way to do that is to model it yourself. Do you find that a lot of leaders, especially in the marketing space, need that reminder? Oh, yeah. Failing is okay. Oh, yes. And historically, if I go back 10, 15 years ago, the creative process was so expensive and polished that failure was expensive, right?
37:43And people didn't want to own it. Well, now the expectation is your creative needs to be able to iterate quickly. And in fact, folks much younger than me prefer creative that's very real, gritty, shot on your iPhone. And so, man, you're going to fail every day. The amount of content that TikTokers push out to their channel that lands, I should know the stat. I bet it's less than 50%. So you get used to some losses and wins every day. But yeah, it's a learning for sure. And it's changed a lot since I've been in the industry. I need to put that sentiment on a sticky note for myself. I like it. Throughout the day.
38:20Producer Rose coming in hot. I like this segment. See, this is fun. I'm here for it. All right. So we have to, of course, go to the world of AI right now. It's a hot topic. A lot of times when I'm talking about this, people are wondering, like, what does the future look like for marketing teams and how they're working? And what are you all seeing right now when it comes to really in the weeds work? What's your team doing that you're impressed by or you're interested in? From an AI standpoint, there's so much that we're doing at GoDaddy that I am incredibly impressed with. Number one, we use AI every day.
38:54Like, we use it. Like, we use it to go to market. We use it to save time. We use it to be more succinct. Even this morning before this podcast, I uploaded a document that was quite lengthy and I utilized our internal AI tool to summarize it and help me think through next steps. So one of the things that impresses me is I work within a culture that uses our products, like our AI stack. And I use that word maybe too generically, all of the AI context that we have in our data infrastructure that powers GoDaddy Aero also powers our internal tools. And so I think that that's critically important as well.
39:34It goes back to empathy, right? Like you can't fully understand your customer if you're not actually being a customer. And so that's one of the things I'm really impressed with culturally that we're doing. There are lots of companies that are doing this. And I would encourage everyone who's listening to this to push their company and push themselves to be ardent users of AI, because you certainly can't sell products that are AI enabled if you don't have a deep understanding yourself. Yeah. Yeah. How do you think about balancing like the human touch element? Like when I think about your Super Bowl commercial and like really getting that like human juicy, like emotions, you know, funny.
40:14Oh, that feels like me. Like, how do you balance that? Plus, a lot of ways of efficiencies that probably can be found in a lot of work that's happening? Like, how do you think about the balance of those two? Yeah, I mean, my simple articulation, my view of AI is AI has the potential to make me better. Right. And so like there's me in that sentence. And when I think about the human component for our customers, this is why the ability for GoDaddy Arrow to be modified, right? You go into the experience, you build something and then you make it your own is one of the things that makes our product really unique.
40:50But I encourage people to think about AI as power that can save them time, help them get answers, but know that, you know, scrutinize the data. Like AI is imperfect. We've all probably all by now heard about like AI hallucinations, you know, dial back the clock 10 years to surfing on the internet for data. If anyone's ever used WebMD for deep dives when you've had some sort of ache or pain, you know, you find yourself in a situation where you're pummeled with misinformation, right? I'm dying. Oh, wait, no. You're like an English. Oh, wait, no. Just a pimple. That was just a Reddit post, right?
41:23That was just a pimple. And so AI is the same, right? It's ingesting data and then feeding that data back to you and getting smarter the more it ingests data. But it is not infallible, nor are we. And so think about it as like a tool, a resource, but not the Oracle. Keeping that in mind when I utilize AI or I see it work on our customer's behalf, I always think about the, how do you validate the information? How do you bring your own special element to the narrative, whether it's a document I'm writing for work or a business that a customer's launching with GoDaddy Arrow? So from a team structure, is your team ever experimenting with tools and bringing them back to you?
42:11Or is it more like a top-down approach of here's some tools that we should be looking into to look at our processes to see how they could support us? It's a little bit of both. So our technology team is constantly strengthening the technology that powers AI for our customers and our company. And recently we're talking a lot about and using agent technology, ultimately personalizing your AI experience. And so, you know, the word tops down to me sounds like a go use this. It's more, hey, it's available to you. This is the way that we handle it culturally. At the same time, my team is constantly iterating within AI and then sharing those learnings out.
42:55We have learning priorities for our team in which The expectation is as you're getting wins, share them out. One of the things that I think is super interesting and I would encourage people to bring back to their companies is, and it goes back to the failure piece too, we have an experimentation showcase. It's once a month. It's company-wide. It's a structured format where we're supposed to talk about what we learned. And about half of the experiments that are brought forward are wins and half are losses. And a lot of them are AI-powered. So, you know, one like a marketing team can share an AI win that then a product team hears and they'll reach out to him on Slack after and be like, hey, help me understand.
43:35So tons of sharing. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, we had that admission a little bit to like everyone find an experiment. Tell us how much money you need for it. What is the benefit that's going to come from it possibly? And no matter if you win or lose, you still have to share it because we want to hear everything. The losses, why would happen, the wins like we want to know. And yeah, I think if a lot of companies had that experimentation culture, like you said, of failure is okay. Right. It's great to learn from those too. Like a lot more things could happen quickly just with, yeah, the freedom to fail.
44:01Totally agree. All right. I know, Rose, you had an AI thing here that you might have, unless I already covered it. No, it's about messaging surrounding AI because it's still so new. Right. My family owns a small business. So I know kind of firsthand it's scary and very intimidating because it's brand new and just the generative aspect of it, it's like creepy in a lot of ways still. So how do you put small business owners at ease while also managing their expectations that right out the gate, it might not capture your vision? Right. It might take time or you need to know how to talk to it. Yeah.
44:37A few thoughts on that. one we when i think about how we position and talk to customers about go daddy arrow we talk about the fact that you can build on top of it right so we talk about the fact that you're not you don't need to acquiesce full control right this isn't a tool that does all the work for you it's a tool that saves you time but even before we launched the product we spent a lot of time talking to small business owners to try to understand number one like do they know what ai is How do they feel about it? How do they use it? And what was really interesting was small business owners across the U.S.
45:13This was a U.S.-based study, if my memory serves. They were largely using AI in their personal lives, but they were cautiously optimistic that it would help them in their work environment, but they weren't using it in the small business space as often as they could. And so that's where I believe that the ingestion of AI into the digital tools that they're using to run their business anyway is a great way for small businesses in general to start to just get comfortable with the role that AI can play for them in their life. And to be really clear, like GoDaddy Arrow won't solve all of their problems, right?
45:54It will help them run their digital business. But I would encourage them to use ChatGPT or Claude or whatever tool of their choosing is to just get into the habit of starting to use AI to help them as a partner to solve their problems. And it's just another resource for them. I think the more that small businesses get used to having conversations with generative AI as a source, not the source, then their willingness to adopt AI to help them save time in other parts of their business will be higher. That's good. So this kind of brings me now to a question when we're talking about like from going to the human to business like B2B, B2B to C.
46:35Yeah. I have a theory that like B2B marketing is kind of dead. And I've been in B2B. that's the only space we normally play in. But when I'm looking at a lot of like enterprise brands specifically, it feels like that marketing is not going to work anymore. If you keep thinking of it as like B2B marketing, like everyone's a consumer now and what they have at home, they're going to be expecting, you know, for work stuff too. Like I need to be buying things that feel fun and exciting. Like a lot of these companies can probably offer similar things with all the tech that's coming out now. And so my thought is like how to win is to have really good consumer marketing, even in the B2B world.
47:10I'd love to hear if you have any thoughts of like this shift that maybe I'm just making up, but. It goes back to my prior comment of like, I don't want to have a work personality and a life personality. Like I'm, I'm just me. And when I'm consuming media, when, if I'm watching TV or I'm on social media or I'm on YouTube, I'm not separating out work. And I'm like, I'm only thinking about, you know, life outside of work. And so I believe that B2B content belongs in that space as well. Now I would contest the bar is higher for B2B in the sense of if all of a sudden my YouTube feed is disrupted with, you know, a flat energy ad from Salesforce talking about their CRM capabilities, I'm less likely to pay attention than I would if Matthew McConaughey is talking about how that Salesforce agent capabilities helped him be successful.
48:04So I commend Salesforce on the way that they're integrating B2B marketing in ways that break through, but still talk about the product. So the job is hard, right? Like Doritos has it good, right? Like they're welcome in your feed, right? Salesforce, GoDaddy, the list goes on and on and on. I think we have to work a little bit harder to be welcome in your feed. But when we do, man, does it pay dividends? Yep. Yeah. I've been pushing clients who are Salesforce size to move into this more business entertainment. Like entertain me while also ROI, like get the ROI while entertaining me. A hundred percent.
48:41I think that's the space that most people want now. And yeah, it's not like we have work laptops anymore that you go there and you're like, I only can look at this one SQL query and I can't go outside this box. The work laptop and the Blackberry. And I go over here, having fun over here. Like all the same. And so I think, yeah, marketing is shifting in that way, which is fun. So, I mean, now that you brought up Salesforce, are you all using their agent force things? I would love to hear about that if you are. We utilize Salesforce for our CRM communication, but much of the technology that we're building from an AI standpoint, we ingest myriad sources of AI data, but then we're building on top of that with our own technology.
49:23Got it. Got it. Okay, cool. All right. So I want to move into more personal, like being a mom, you're a mom to three, right? I am. I'd love to hear about that. These are just like my own questions where I'm like, well, while you're here, I'll just ask things I want. Let's do it. Yeah. So hopefully other people will be interested in this. I'm pretty sure there's more moms out there, at least one listening. But how have you found the balance between, you know, being a badass CMO at amazing companies and also finding time for family life? And like, what would you tell, you know, women who are aspiring in this path right now to find a balance and enjoy it while still having a life.
49:58Yeah. I mean, for me, my family is of paramount importance and my work is of paramount importance. You're like, wait, wait, you can't have two paramounts. And my theory on that is not balance per se, but toggling, like meaning how do I make the space to be all in on each when I can? Right. And so, you know, an early story that was really important for me in my days at Dell when I had kids who were one, two, and three. My kids are bang, bang, bang, all boys. They're now 13, 14, 15. And it is bananas, but in the best way possible is I would get home from Dell and I would leave my work phone in my car from probably 6.30 p.m.
50:42until 8.30 p.m. because I'm not a neurologist. And so I wanted to be wholly present for my family for those two hours. And those were precious two hours. And then at 830, I'd get back online and knock out the things I needed to knock out or what I missed. And I would set really clear expectations with my team. I'm like, I'm unavailable from 630 to 830. And that felt like to some folks, they were like, whoa, that's like really risky, Farrah. What about your job? And I was like, I'll be as good at my job as I possibly can be for all of these other hours. On the flip side, there are times where my job has had to take precedent and I have to tell my family.
51:19I mean, for the 12 weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, I just said this to my CEO, Amon. The 12 weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, I saw my family very little. I saw my friends very little. I slept very little. And I loved every second of it because the work was so awesome and so fun. And I was so deeply in it with my team that it didn't feel like work. And what I said to my family was, I love you so much. I have to do this for all of us and for me. And I'll be back soon. And that might sound harsh, but they were like, go mom. They were like, that's awesome. And so I think being really clear around what your priorities are, because we all watch people and we've all had moments where we're trying to do two things at once.
52:00Right. And you'll hear women say like women are better at multitasking than men, but I don't believe it. I don't think humans are awesome at multitasking. We're not meant to switch like that. No, and not do it all concurrently because if so, you're doing things half-assed. So I really try to do one thing at a time and do it as well as I possibly can. Then take a break either for myself or for my family or for the work and try to be all in. So toggling is something that I really try to do consciously. It's not easy, but it's worked. Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of like defining boundaries and coming strong with a loving, you know, backbone of like, here's why I'm doing this.
52:36I mean, I think about when I first had my twins and my company was like, oh, it wasn't really doing that well and lots of chaos. And I chose the company because I thought I had to because I had a whole team and it's like a lot of stress. And then there's my little twins and my one year old. And I'm like, I had to do it. And I could have come out with stronger boundaries that when I look back on it now, I'm like, I totally should have. Hindsight, of course, is easy. And so much mom guilt, like, oh, my babies. But had I heard someone be like, no, boundaries, take space, nothing's that important other than spending time right now with your little babies over there.
53:11And so, yeah, I think that's a good lesson. Yeah, I totally get it. What I will say is a very busy family helps you also put work in perspective. Like being a mom of three, nearly all high school boys, the level of stress of that often pales in, you know, work pales in comparison. I'm like, this problem, this is a small problem. We know how to solve this problem. We can solve this problem with math or with magic or with time. You know, sometimes, you know, the chaos of family makes work seem real calm. Oh, yeah. And so that's been a gift for me too, is to get to toggle between environments as well.
53:55I love that. So we're going to move on to the lightning round. This is where I send a question your way and you have like a minute or less to answer. First thing that comes to mind. Are you ready, Farrah? I am ready. All right. What is a marketing book that you think everyone should read? One of my favorite business books is Good to Great. It's not a marketing book per se, but my belief is that marketing powers business. and so read good to great. It'll make you a better business leader. Yeah, I love that. What's a marketing trend right now that you think is overhyped or buzzwords that are being used or certain like KPIs that everyone's looking at that you're like, that's just overhyped at this point?
54:32You know, my belief is that marketing isn't trendy per se, right? There will be platforms that will emerge and leaning in and testing them and learning them is a value. But, you know, if everyone runs to a channel or a space or a way of storytelling, then suddenly it's saturated and it's no longer marketable. So I guess my summary is steer clear of trends. They're dangerous and tread cautiously just to learn. Don't go all in. Yeah. OK, this is like too good of a clip right here. Stay away from trends. It's really good. I mean, that is what most companies do. They're like, oh, tick tock dancing trend.
55:15Here I go. I'm on it. And it's like, no, that's other than Ikea to do a good job where they like recreated a trend that was super outdated and they made a play on like how outdated they were with it. And I'm like, OK, that's actually kind of funny. Right. Instead of doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. Right. Like a trend means a trend by definition is sea of sameness. Right. And as a brand, your job is to stand out. So if you're going to do it, do it in a way that is incredibly timely. So you're first or incredibly ironic so that you stand out per your Ikea reference. Yep. Yep. Love it.
55:45What's the last ad that you saw that made you be like, oh, well, I like I remember that one. It's impressive. And it stuck with you. Yeah, I I saw the Hellman's ad as many people did before the Super Bowl and like audibly gas. Yeah, I was like, that is so good. I mean, all the way down to the line at the end that said it hits the spot. I was like, whoo, bold people, bold. So I thought that ad was fantastic. I know that, you know, everyone loves to be a critic of ads. So some folks felt like the product wasn't as central as it could have been. I thought the product was super central too. Well done, Hellman's.
56:21And you know, you can eat Hellman's while using GoDaddy Aero. So we're friends. We're not competitors. Yeah, yeah, that's good. This is so good. Are you watching season three of White Lotus? Yes, I'm obsessed with it. Isn't it amazing? It's amazing. So can we just talk about this for one minute and then you can do with it whatever you want? Please. I don't watch a lot of TV, which is I feel like something sacrosanct to say as a marketer. Right. I'm supposed to like never sleep and just watch TV. I watch a lot of sports because of my family of athletes. But I watched the first season of White Lotus and I was like, oh, everyone's so despicable, but I kind of like it.
56:57And I didn't watch the second. I'm excited to go back and watch it. But I've watched this season religiously. And I got to tell you, so Walton Goggins, if you do listen to this podcast, but you're very busy, so I bet you won't. But he will. He probably so will. I hope so, right? I hope so. He's an immaculate dresser, right? Like he, his fashion sense is on point. And to see him in White Lotus just be all scruffy. And he's also just not sad. He's like, his cup overfloweth. And to see him like scruffy and sad and all like wrapped up in knots, like I can't get enough of it. All right. Well, there we have it, Farrah.
57:32Thank you so much for coming on Marketing Trends. This was so fun. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I loved having you in person. Where can people learn more about you and what you're up to at GoDaddy? Oh, I mean, let's focus on GoDaddy, not me. I mean, honestly, please come to GoDaddy.com. I'm just so proud of the way the team has brought the GoDaddy Arrow story to life. If you're a Goggins fan, there's tons of content out there for you on our website, too. Brought to you by him. I'd call it a Gogified version of GoDaddy.com. How to stay in touch with me. I don't know. Awesome stuff like this. There you go.
58:01Like, watch the podcast again. Stephanie's awesome. More of this. So fun. All right. Well, thanks so much. And we'll have to have you back for a round two sometime in the future. That'd be awesome. I'm right down the street. Yes, you are. Thanks.
From the publisher
What does it take to launch an AI product on the biggest stage in advertising — and actually make it stick?
GoDaddy CMO Fara Howard joins us to unpack the strategy behind their standout Super Bowl campaign for GoDaddy Airo, featuring actor Walton Goggins (White Lotus, The Righteous Gemstones). From idea to execution, Fara shares how her team translated a complex product into a message that millions could instantly understand — without losing the creativity that made it unforgettable.
We dive into the balance of data and storytelling, how to earn the right to be bold with your marketing, and why simplicity is a superpower in B2B. Whether you're a CMO, brand leader, or growth marketer, Fara’s insights into performance-backed creativity, product positioning, and campaign accountability will leave you rethinking how you launch, scale, and measure your next big idea.
Key Moments:
- 00:00 Who is Fara Howard, GoDaddy CMO?
- 00:21 Why GoDaddy Returned to the Super Bowl in 2024
- 01:37 The Evolution of GoDaddy’s Super Bowl Ad Playbook
- 03:51 What Is GoDaddy Airo? Breaking Down the AI Product Launch
- 05:57 Lessons from Launching a New AI Tool at Massive Scale
- 09:30 How GoDaddy Chose Walton Goggins for the Super Bowl Spot
- 15:56 Behind the Scenes: Building a Creative Campaign That Converts
- 26:22 Real-World Marketing Advice from a CMO: Math vs. Magic
- 34:43 Why Company Culture Should Shape Your Career Path
- 35:39 A Cultural Misfit: The Vans Story You Have to Hear
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