GoDaddy Puts Harry Redknapp to Work Selling Jam Roly Polys Online
GoDaddy's "Harry's Roly Polys" campaign is a 2019 United Kingdom marketing initiative, created by agency VCCP, in which former football manager and television personality Harry Redknapp builds and launches a real online business selling jam roly poly puddings, powered entirely by GoDaddy's domain and website-builder tools, with profits donated to charity.
The campaign launched in the United Kingdom in March 2019, according to Clapboard, and was distributed across television, digital, out-of-home, and social media. GoDaddy described it as its largest UK marketing campaign outside the United States, as reported by LBBonline. VCCP had won GoDaddy's lead creative account after a competitive pitch in December 2018, as noted by LBBonline, making "Harry's Roly Polys" the agency's very first work for the brand. The timing placed the campaign at the heart of a growing conversation in the UK about how small business owners and first-time entrepreneurs could move their ventures online quickly and affordably.
Harry Redknapp, winner of "I'm a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!" and a figure with broad popular recognition across the United Kingdom, served as both the campaign's talent and its subject. Redknapp stated that jam roly poly pudding was "the thing I missed most in the jungle" and motivated him to start a business for charity, as cited by Clapboard. He registered the domain harrysrolypolys.co.uk through GoDaddy and used GoDaddy Website Builder to establish the venture. Products were baked by Heidi Bakery and sold online, per LBBonline, with campaign profits directed to Hope Housing, a Bournemouth charity supporting people experiencing homelessness. The campaign earned a Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100, reflecting its strong cultural relevance and clear product demonstration within a competitive internet and technology category.
GoDaddy identified a precise consumer truth at the centre of its UK strategy. Irana Wasti, SVP and Head of EMEA at GoDaddy, characterised Harry Redknapp as "typical of so many everyday entrepreneurs in the UK: passionate about what they do, but too short on time or expertise to get online," as reported by LBBonline. That positioning — the capable, motivated person held back not by ambition but by perceived technical complexity — gave VCCP a creative problem with genuine strategic weight.
In the United Kingdom, the small business sector represents a substantial share of economic activity, and the challenge of digital adoption among micro-enterprises and sole traders had become a documented policy concern by 2019. GoDaddy's competitive set in the UK market included established domain and hosting rivals such as 123-reg, a dominant UK-facing registrar, and Wix, which had invested heavily in television advertising aimed at the same first-time website builder audience. Against this backdrop, GoDaddy needed a campaign that demonstrated product ease rather than simply asserting it. According to webtribunal.net, GoDaddy held an estimated 6.6% global hosting market share in the period, ahead of Amazon Web Services at an estimated 5.9%, per the same source, underlining that the brand was competing at scale while still needing to build emotional relevance in the UK specifically.
VCCP's response was to make the product demonstration the entire premise. Rather than staging a fictional small business scenario, the agency built a real one around Redknapp, generating authentic proof that GoDaddy's tools could take an idea from concept to live commerce quickly. George Everett, VCCP partner, positioned the work as culture-led brand demonstration, as noted by LBBonline, prioritising credibility over spectacle in a category where consumer scepticism about ease-of-use claims runs high.
"Harry's Roly Polys" operates as a live business proposition rather than a conventional advertising construct. VCCP built the creative execution around the authentic arc of Redknapp establishing harrysrolypolys.co.uk: selecting a domain name, building the site using GoDaddy Website Builder, and bringing a product to market through a genuine e-commerce storefront. The film medium, as documented by Clapboard, captured this process in a way that allowed the product's simplicity to be shown rather than narrated.
Harry Redknapp's on-screen presence leaned into his established public persona: warm, plainspoken, and self-deprecating about his technical limitations. He credited GoDaddy with creating "a smart, simple website up and running in no time," as cited by Clapboard, a line that functions simultaneously as testimonial and product demonstration. That authenticity was amplified by the decision to engage Heidi Bakery as the actual production partner for the roly polys, per LBBonline, lending the entire venture a tangible legitimacy that purely fictional campaigns in the technology and internet category rarely achieve.
The campaign ran across television, digital, out-of-home, and social media in the United Kingdom, creating a multi-channel presence that allowed the Harry's Roly Polys narrative to unfold with different levels of depth across different touchpoints. The out-of-home and social executions extended the storytelling beyond the film asset, reinforcing the URL and the charitable dimension — profits going to Hope Housing in Bournemouth — at moments when audiences were not necessarily in a lean-back viewing context. Production credits for the "Harry's Roly Polys" campaign beyond George Everett's creative partnership role at VCCP and Irana Wasti's brand leadership at GoDaddy are not publicly documented in available sources.
No verified performance data for "Harry's Roly Polys" is publicly available in terms of reach figures, website traffic to harrysrolypolys.co.uk, sales volumes, or brand-tracking uplift specific to the United Kingdom market. The absence of disclosed metrics is not uncommon for campaigns of this type, where the primary commercial objective is brand positioning rather than direct-response conversion.
Structurally, the campaign demonstrates several markers of effectiveness worth examining. The decision to build a real business rather than a simulated one creates a verifiable proof point that endures beyond the campaign's active media period: the domain, the product, and the charitable beneficiary — Hope Housing — all exist independently of the advertising itself. This structural integrity is rare in the internet and technology category, where competitors such as Wix have historically relied on celebrity endorsement without the same degree of functional demonstration.
GoDaddy reported approximately $2.988 billion in total 2019 revenue, according to thrivemyway.com, which reflects the global scale of the business the UK campaign was supporting. In the United Kingdom specifically, the campaign represented GoDaddy's most significant marketing investment outside its home US market, as reported by LBBonline, signalling a strategic commitment to the geography that the creative approach was designed to anchor. The Clapboard Score of 67 out of 100 positions "Harry's Roly Polys" as a competent and culturally well-calibrated piece of work, with room for greater measurable impact had the campaign incorporated clearer direct-response mechanisms alongside its brand-building ambitions.
GoDaddy's "Harry's Roly Polys" is a 2019 UK campaign created by VCCP. It follows Harry Redknapp building a real online business selling jam roly poly puddings using GoDaddy's domain and website-builder tools. Profits from the venture were donated to Hope Housing, a Bournemouth charity supporting people experiencing homelessness, as reported by LBBonline.
GoDaddy chose Harry Redknapp because he represented everyday UK entrepreneurs — passionate but lacking digital expertise. Irana Wasti, SVP and Head of EMEA at GoDaddy, described him as typical of small business owners too short on time or expertise to get online, as reported by LBBonline, making him an authentic demonstration vehicle for the platform.
VCCP created "Harry's Roly Polys" for GoDaddy. VCCP won GoDaddy's lead creative account after a competitive pitch in December 2018, as reported by LBBonline, and the Harry's Roly Polys campaign, launching in the United Kingdom in March 2019, was the agency's first campaign for the brand, per Clapboard.
Harry Redknapp's roly poly business was a real commercial venture. He registered harrysrolypolys.co.uk through GoDaddy and used GoDaddy Website Builder to create the site. Products were baked by Heidi Bakery and sold online, per LBBonline, with proceeds going to Hope Housing in Bournemouth, giving the campaign authentic commercial and charitable substance.
GoDaddy distributed the Harry's Roly Polys campaign across television, digital, out-of-home, and social media in the United Kingdom, according to LBBonline. The multi-channel approach allowed the campaign's narrative to reach audiences at different levels of depth, from the long-form film asset to shorter out-of-home and social executions reinforcing the brand and the charitable angle.
The Clapboard Score for GoDaddy's "Harry's Roly Polys" campaign is 67 out of 100. This reflects the campaign's strong cultural relevance and clear product demonstration within the competitive UK internet and technology category, while indicating room for greater measurable impact through more direct-response mechanisms alongside its brand-building ambitions.
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