Brand transformations are easy to talk about but difficult to execute. For Greg Efthimiou, Vice President of Public Relations at ⁠GoDaddy, the key is making sure it’s never just about messaging. “Your brand transformation has to be rooted in the value you deliver to your stakeholders,” he tells Doug Simon on PR’s Top Pros Talk. “It can't be words on paper. It can't be an ad campaign. It must be rooted in what you're giving them that helps them get through life easier, accomplish tasks more efficiently or effectively, or introduces new capabilities they didn't have before.”

That philosophy has guided GoDaddy’s evolution from a company best known for helping people claim their corner of the internet to one laser-focused on empowering small businesses. “GoDaddy went through a very intentional brand transformation within the last ten years, really, to focus on small business owners, helping the smallest of the smallest small businesses really figure out how to get their presence online and how to sell online as well,” Greg explains. With that sharper focus, the company has become something very different than where it started nearly three decades ago.

At GoDaddy, experimentation has become a cultural norm. “We actually executed 2,000 structured experiments in 2024,” Greg says. “Every department, every team has experiments. It’s the old scientific method you learned about in middle school.”

Each test is designed with a hypothesis, objectives, controls, and variables, and the results are measured in a binary way. “We’d much rather have a win or a loss,” he explains. “It’s the ones where we don’t have a great conclusion to draw from the experiment, that we scratch our heads and say, that didn’t feel great.”

To minimize inconclusive results, GoDaddy hosts a monthly experimentation showcase open to the entire company. Employees present their projects for review and vote on which stand out. “Even if I’m in a completely different function, in a different department, I can learn from what somebody else did and apply that to my work,” Greg notes.

That spirit of experimentation carried through GoDaddy’s award-winning Super Bowl campaign. The integrated effort, led by actor Walton Goggins, earned the Cannes Lions B2B Grand Prix. For GoDaddy, it was a return to the Super Bowl stage after an eight-year hiatus, but with a new message: small businesses can now launch and grow online in a matter of minutes using GoDaddy Airo, its AI-powered platform.

Goggins wasn’t chosen just for star power. “We needed somebody who had small business interests and a kind of an entrepreneur at heart mindset,” Greg explains. Goggins leaned in with his own venture, the tongue-in-cheek but very real “Walton Goggins Goggle Glasses.” By showcasing how easy it is to start a business online, the campaign connected with GoDaddy’s core audience while earning mainstream buzz.

The experimentation extended internally, too. Instead of sending executives to the Super Bowl, GoDaddy awarded tickets to employees through a video series that built anticipation and pride across the company. As Greg puts it, it was a way “to drum up interest internally and support and encouragement for employees to develop a lot of pride around GoDaddy being back in the Super Bowl again.”

Beyond campaigns and experiments, Greg draws inspiration from endurance hiking, a personal passion of his. “It reminds me of the work that we do every day in communications, which is that it’s rarely a sprint, it’s usually a marathon,” he says. “You’re always going uphill in communications, bringing people along with you, and encouraging each other.”

For GoDaddy, that marathon continues: transforming its brand, experimenting relentlessly, and staying true to its mission of delivering real value to small business owners.

View all of the interviews in the “PR's Top Pros Talk” series. Interested in taking part? Contact Doug Simon at [email protected].

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Suchi Sherpa is a Marketing Communications Specialist at D S Simon Media, a leading firm specializing in satellite media tours.