Groupon: clueless as Kenneth Cole

February 6, 2011 8:30 PM
Dan Mitchell
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The scene: a conference room at Groupon HQ, last Thursday.

Marketing Guy One: “Hmm. Kenneth Cole tweeted something jokey today about Egyptians going crazy for his spring collection and he’s being pummeled mercilessly online for being “extraordinarily tin-eared” — whatever that means.

Marketing Guy Two: “Uh-oh. Do you think maybe our Super Bowl Tibet ad will be similarly pilloried by people for what they call “bad taste” and what we call “advertising?”

Marketing Guy One: “Well, the $3 million is already spent, so the point is moot. Better have PR prepare an apology statement for Monday, just in case. But don’t worry, dude: buzz is buzz, bro!. High five!

  • iggiee88

    Too bad the insensitivity of Groupon with their Tibet commercial is farther reaching then they probably realize. http://bit.ly/fKegsC

  • TerryMowery

    The Groupon commercials were conceived by the same Jackasses who made the creepy Burger King commercials.How stupid!

  • http://twitter.com/dquiec David Quiec

    I think it works – Groupon is going to get a lot of more users.

  • http://twitter.com/Zoglog Dchen

    whine whine, commercial was pretty amusing. Get over it

  • http://www.groupon-off.com Carl Ruzycki

    What does money mean to a company that has been offered $6 Billion and turned it down and then is deluged with another billion dollars from VC's and Wall Street? How could the Groupon management team that approved the Tibet Ad know how the people in Tibet really feel as they sit drowning in money? I believe the last thing on the mind of anyone from Tibet people is seeing a groupon deal with a restaurant and the restaurateur will have to give away upwards of 75% of the selling price to Groupon so they can continue to attract moe investment dollars. The question is whether this Ad was a mistake or it was planned to be controversial?Are we seeing Groupon following the same footsteps as Kenneth Cole by testing the market to see if Controversial Tweets and now a Super Ball Ad draw higher Google Search rankings from negative responses than doing a non controversial Ad? The answer will be measured in due time based on the number of old and new buyers that liked or didn't like what they saw and continue to support Groupon's business model. As I buyer, I ask myself whether getting that 50% deal blinds me to the corporate culture of the company based on what I saw. My response is easy – No more groupons for me.

  • http://twitter.com/ronen_perets Ronen Perets

    Well, I just unsibscribed because of that insensitivity. I get a good joke, but to clearly state the bad shape of an ethnic group and how it's culture is in danger (which it is) just for an advertisement, someone needs to lose his/her job.

  • giants525

    Had any of you bothered to go to groupon.com you would have seen that they are encouraging people to donate to these causes. http://savethemoney.groupon.co…/

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1208232874 Todd Lyden

    Had they just FLASHED the “donate to help Tibet” at the end with the website, we would not be talking about it, but they ran a douchey ad and an even douchier apology

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