GoDaddy is making a high-profile return to the Big Game after an 8-year interlude with a campaign that trades its once-controversial shock tactics for a more polished pitch: artificial intelligence as the ultimate business partner.
On Feb. 9, during the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 59, the web services company will air a 30-second spot starring actor Walton Goggins. The ad, entitled “Act Like You Know,” aims to showcase the power of GoDaddy Airo, the company’s suite of AI-powered tools designed to help small businesses build websites, generate branding materials, and create marketing assets.
“Our AI-powered experience, GoDaddy Airo deserves one of the world’s biggest stages,” said Rachael Powell, GoDaddy’s senior director of brand marketing.
Goggins, who’s starred in blockbuster films and shows like Django Unchained, The White Lotus, and Sons of Anarchy, shows off the power of acting—that is, acting as if you know what you’re doing. He portrays a smattering of characters in the ad, each convincingly embodying a profession he has no expertise in—from a detective botching a crime scene to a racecar driver accelerating in the wrong direction on a racetrack.
The punchline arrives when Goggins, eventually playing himself as an entrepreneur, admits that running a small business is the hardest role of all—until GoDaddy Airo comes to the rescue. His eyewear brand, Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses, springs to life with AI-generated branding, a sleek website, and fresh marketing assets. “With GoDaddy Airo, it’s like you know what you’re doing,” Goggins quips.
“[Goggins is] a national treasure who is also passionate about small businesses,” said Adam Nowak, the company’s executive creative director.
The brand’s creative team worked closely with Goggins not just to develop the ad but to launch an actual business, positioning the actor’s once-fictional eyewear brand as a real-life test case for GoDaddy Airo’s capabilities. The brand, Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses, launched last year, and now sells five different styles that retail for $150.
The spot was directed by Ian Pons Jewell and crafted in partnership with creative agency Quality Meats, which in December was named ADWEEK’s 2024 Small Agency of the Year.
“As small business owners ourselves, this brief hit home for us. Because, frankly, when we started we had no idea what we were doing,” said Brian Siedband, the agency’s co-founder and co-CCO. “And most people starting a small business have no idea what they’re doing. But then you look around at all the other businesses out there thinking, ‘Man, they really look like they know what they’re doing, they clearly know.’ But actually they don’t, and that’s okay because looking like you know what you’re doing is not only really important—it’s the first step to actually knowing what you’re doing. Although we still kinda don’t.”
