Groupon: In bed with the Devil?

Groupon, the daily deal giant, paid $3 million for a 30-second Super Bowl spot last week, and one wonders in hindsight if the vast majority of those dollars weren’t handed to someone in a red costume, with horns and the “purest of intentions.”

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason spoke to the recent controversy, saying that the ad was an attempt to make fun of those who it represented (that’s right – Groupon), and not at all a manipulation of the current climate of adversity in Tibet. That’s not all, though. Mason even suggested that there was yet another white-hat agenda: to bring awareness to Groupon’s various charitable endeavors. Perhaps Mason meant what he said, but many, many people disagree.

Look at it this way – if a joke actually has to be explained in detail, something isn’t right. The irony lies in the fact that with some slight editing, the ad could have not only been honorable, but inspiring to millions all over the globe, millions who are desperately waiting for ad agencies to produce campaigns that include integrity, compassion, and understanding. Groupon sure dropped the ball on world relations here, as many would agree.

The ad agency in question? - Crispin Porter & Bogusky. You might remember their recent campaign for Domino’s Pizza, where the company downs itself for creating a sub-par offering to hungry consumers over the years. CP & B took the stance that the best course of action (instead of coming clean about the several scandals over the years) would be a proactively apologetic campaign, one which would gradually win back customers, and re-solidify the Domino’s brand.

Here's how Crispin Porter's group creative director Tony Calcao explained it to Hemispheres Magazine:
"We realized that we couldn't just come out and say we have a brand new pizza, because no one's going to believe Domino's. The first thing you need to do is own up to the fact that you had to make a whole new pizza."

Where will the line be drawn when it comes to advertising to the masses? Should the courts get involved, or will their fines be well worth the black-hat advertising of certain ad agencies or companies?

Daily Deals Websites Get Their Closeup - During The Superbowl!

Lost in the controversy that is Groupon ‘s ad parody of situations in Tibet, is the fact that this was only one of four Daily Deal commercials that aired during the Super Bowl broadcast.  While the American public didn’t greet these ads as warmly as they did for Volkswagen’s Darth Vader ad or even the coworker-chimpanzees driving cars commercial, the ads aired by the Daily Deal companies were still quite effective.   This is because of two main reasons: the fact that the controversy Groupon caused attracted attention to both themselves and the industry, and the fact that both Groupon and LivingSocial were able to afford some the most expensive commercial slots in existence.  The Daily Deal Industry secured for itself many future customers, even if Groupon offended some of them momentarily.

            Of course when you have an audience of 163 million people, commercial time is going to be quite expensive.  There were four Daily Deal commercials in total, as LivingSocial.com also featured an advertisement.  Even though they did not all air during the Super Bowl’s official airtime (some were during the pre-game show), there must have been some good reasons behind these companies’ ability to buy such expensive airtime.

            Those reasons started with Groupon’s chief competitor: LivingSocial.  To say that the Washington D.C. based website had a good month in January would be an understatement.  According to Business Insider, a new infusion of money due to an agreement with Amazon.com allowed for LivingSocial to gain five million new users.  Throughout January, they were able to offer half-priced Amazon gift certificates.  These five million new customers represented three times more subscribers than Groupon gained during January.  Feeling their advantage over the market slipping away, Groupon felt it necessary to retaliate.  This led to the last minute purchasing of Super Bowl commercial time, which was used for the Tibet ad.

            According to Miles Nadal, Chairman and CEO of ad-agency giant MDC Partners, Groupon’s Tibet commercial has already generated 50,000 new customers.  Whether in bad taste or not, the commercial has achieved its goal.  After all, when trying to shop for a great daily bargain, is the average consumer really thinking about the morality of the company?  I think probably not.  Most Americans have not stopped shopping at big box stores, even though they chiefly sell imported products, whose outsourcing costs America jobs.  The company that can offer the lowest prices gets the sale.  This will undoubtedly be the case with Daily Deals as well.

Time should show that none of the controversy caused by Groupon’s commercials will be remembered.  Despite the fact that they may offended the American public with their joking about rainforest deforestization and whale conservation, and even caused public outburst by making light of the human rights disaster that is happening every day in Tibet.  However, what will be remembered is that this year’s Super Bowl proved to be an important point in the growth the Daily Deal Industry.  This was the point that many Americans that previously knew nothing about daily deals took a minute to stop and think about this a new way for them to save money.  From now on, most Americans will know of not only Groupon.com, but also the emerging market of Daily Deals.

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Dealdoc.com pulls deals from 300+ daily deals sites including Groupon and LivingSocial from over 200 cities and puts them on one website.

Another social network has arrived: ChirpMe

February 3, 2011

By Brian Good, Founder, DealDoc.com

Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Brian Good.  Brian is the founder of DealDoc.com

Yet another social network has entered the fray, and its name is ChirpMe. It combines a mix of Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Match.com, and a FourSquare concept is soon to be added. Founded by Josh Viner and his brother Jonathan (a couple of social visionaries in their own right) ChirpMe launched in January 2011. Within the first 48 hours, more than 1,000 people had already signed up. The boys hope to take the network nationwide in the near future.

“It’s a place where you connect and get to know people, get to know your friends better, and at the same time you can meet new people,” Josh said last week in an interview.

The system draws on this information to populate your account (though you are invited to fill in additional details). The site drives interactions in a variety of ways. During the initial setup, users select New Haven restaurants that they are interested in going to, information which will be used later on by the system to link that user with others who are interested in the same place. The users will be coaxed into going there by means of a special ChirpMe.com-only offer. It’s win-win-win: the users get a date, and a discount on a meal, the restaurant gets more business, and the site gets a kick-back from the restaurant.

The restaurant deals are the best example of spurring in-person contact, but the site also has more conventional electronic interaction methods. For starters, the system asks users randomly-generated questions for them to post answers to on their pages. Users can also trade comments back and forth on each others’ pages a la Facebook. You can even link your ChirpMe status to your Facebook account so that your posts show up in both places.

As previously mentioned, ChirpMe is only available in New Haven right now, but the model is really great for driving hyperlocal commerce and communication. It will take time for the brothers to grow it out to different cities. Larger, sprawling metropolitan areas like New York and Seattle may prove too unwieldy for ChirpMe, however taking a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach might give them smaller chunks to chew on.