Many Offended by Groupon Super Bowl Commercials: Do You Think the Ads Were in Poor Taste?
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Feb. 8, 2011 -- "I've been spending the day listening to the negative feedback about our Tibet Super Bowl commercial, and want to take a crack at explaining why we created this campaign," Groupon CEO Andrew Mason wrote on the company's blog Monday.
Groupon, a deal-of-the-day website, came under attack for its first offline ads, which aired during last Sunday's Super Bowl. The commercials featured celebrities weighing in on important global issues, then broke into a story about how that celebrity used Groupon to save money.
The ad that has generated the most criticism centered on Tibet. Many viewers believed it mocked the plight of the Tibetan people to sell a service.
The commercial began with actor Timothy Hutton calling attention to the region's problems.
"Mountainous Tibet, one of the most beautiful places in the world. This is Timothy Hutton. The people of Tibet are in trouble, their very culture in jeopardy," the actor says.
Then his tone abruptly changes, and he becomes energized and enthusiastic.
"But they still whip up an amazing fish curry. And since 200 of us bought it on Groupon.com, we're getting $30 worth of Tibetan food for just $15."
The other spots make fun of saving the whales, and of rain forest devastation, but Mason said that was not the intent.
"We take the causes we highlighted extremely seriously -- that's why we created this campaign in partnership with many hallmark community organizations, for whom we're raising money at SaveTheMoney.org," Mason wrote. "When we think about commercials that offend us, we think of those that glorify antisocial behavior -- like the scores of Super Bowl ads that are built around the crass objectification of women. Unlike those ads, no one walks away from our commercials taking the causes we highlighted less seriously. Not a single person watched our ad and concluded that it's cool to kill whales. In fact -- and this is part of the reason we ran them -- they have the opposite effect."
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