Client + Project

GoDaddy + #OpenWeStand

Roll

Sr. Creative Operations Manager

Summary

GoDaddy launched OpenWeStand.org in March 2020 as GoDaddy’s corporate response to the pandemic in order to support GoDaddy’s base of everyday entrepreneurs. It became an inspirational and functional resource for small businesses looking to navigate COVID-19.

We launched a movement of anything and everything we could to help. Within 10 days we launched films (including global adapts) honoring their incredible resilience and saying we would stand by them with free products, tools, and resources. This drove to a landing page that was bigger than our company. It was resources, community, advice, forums, offers, partnerships, and more.

The movement was broken out in the following phases:

Phase 1: Creating A Movement #openwestand
Phase 2 A: A dose of encouragement to start your thing – They Did It, So Can You
Phase 2 B: How our products can help – Come Be Part Of It
Phase 3: The Re-Open

Results

This was a pivotal moment of solidifying GoDaddy’s new, evolved brand to the world – not just the U.S. The hero Open We Stand film was the most performant ad since the rebrand – proving that consumers want brands to stand for their values.

Brand Search Query Volume up by 12%, crushing our goal of +3%
4.5 billion impressions! Over half of those impressions are from paid advertising (with an average CPM of nearly half our target), 24% are from brand social and 17% are from PR.
Hitting a 12 month high in brand awareness.
The campaign drove our YouTube subscribers over 117K
And our Instagram followers over 61K.
601 LinkedIn Community members.
59M YouTube views on our 60s spot.
We had our strongest Q2 ever.
With this campaign, the US exceeded ‘For People Like Me’ scores in 2020 with Q4 setting a record high of 32.7%

#OpenWeStand Recap

When the pandemic hit, millions of small businesses thought they would close forever. GoDaddy created #OpenWeStand, an integrated marketing effort, with the focus on keeping small businesses open.

Hero

There's another way to be open and GoDaddy is making it work. To support our customers, GoDaddy gave free products, tools and resources during these hard times.

They Did It, So Can You

Following the incredible success of GoDaddy's original #OpenWeStand TV spot, and after seeing record levels of interest in starting a new business, GoDaddy decided to remind entrepreneurs that even in these uncertain times, now is a fantastic time to start something new. GoDaddy kicked off with another TV spot that stressed the idea, "They did it, so can you."

We looked to history for this encouragement and realized many companies were started in recessions proving it’s not about the time ideas were started in, but the people who start them.

The Pledge

GoDaddy made a pledge to support small businesses during the tough times. We prove it when we order in from the neighborhood cafe, line our walls with regional artwork, stock up on handcrafted soaps, buy T-shirts from a local screen printer. Anything we can do to support our entrepreneurs and keep small businesses going.

We asked customers to learn more and show their support at OpenWeStand.org.

Come Be a Part of It

Since stay-at-home orders made it tough for small businesses to stay in business, we wanted our everyday Entrepreneurs to understand that our products can genuinely help them. And even though we were stuck indoors – life was still being lived – so Come Be Part Of It.

We all still wanted happy hours, little treats, to learn new skills, to stay fit. We still needed and wanted the things businesses provide. We just had to find them online. And boy, were we shopping online! YoY online sales growth was up 68% in mid-April. This film is a little advice to small businesses to pivot online and to use all the tools GoDaddy provides so they can still be part of our lives. Picked up by the AUS and CA markets.

All those featured are genuine GoDaddy businesses that are pivoting and finding new ways to do things. One such story was of Chef Zach. Zach lost his employment due to the pandemic but went online with GoDaddy and cooked with you over FaceTime with what you had in your pantry.

Re-opening

When you start a movement, you can’t just be there at the beginning, you have to keep showing up. GoDaddy provided a continued message of support for the next phase of Covid-19, as states open back up. “As we re-open our doors, what kind of world do we want to walk out into? One that is as interesting and individual as the people in it.” As every state will hit this moment at different times, this can be mixed in the media buy with the previous messages to run what is the most appropriate to them.