GoDaddy strives to be a mentor for Canadians offering easy to use tools and resources to succeed in pursuing their passion projects or small business ideas online.

The goal was to increase awareness and familiarity levels with GoDaddy’s product stack authentically and naturally while reinforcing the brand as Canada’s small business partner, ultimately driving new customer sign-ups.

GoDaddy discovered that its target audience, small business owners and go-getters with an idea had a love for sports - particularly basketball.

Sparked by the insight that basketball was popular in Ontario and growing nationwide, the initial idea to build a small business story around a star Toronto Raptor and capitalize on the momentum of the team came to fruition.

This is where Jonas Valanciunas (JV) came into the picture and where the itty bitty ballers campaign idea materialized. JV at 7 ft. tall is known to have a passion for little things. So GoDaddy helped him create mini-versions of himself in many different poses, referred to as itty bitty ballers.

The agency worked to develop a fully integrated 360 campaign, delivering a consistent message across all touchpoints in an entertaining, authentic way.

Iittybittyballers.ca, the fully functional website powering JVs business was created using GoDaddy’s website builder tool, and the figurines were produced by Selftraits, a Toronto-based GoDaddy client.

JV announced his new business venture online followed by a tidal wave of social engagement from Canadians. Itty bitty baller began to generate buzz through TV spots, online video and paid social.

Within no time the campaign surpassed GoDaddy’s expectations. The figurines sold out in ten days prompting GoDaddy to produce another batch. Over 580 million media impressions were delivered across TV, digital, social and OOH as well as 12 million online video views on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and OLV platforms. Coverage was three times higher than expected with 171 pickups in national and international media outlets, delivering an estimated 25 million PR impressions.

YouTube brand effect study showed an increase of 69.7% in brand interest, 61.8% in ad-recall and 28.5% in brand consideration. GoDaddy’s global brand measurement survey showed a jump of 19% for unaided awareness.