Groupon Super Bowl Commercials (Bad PR?)

The Situation:

Big social coupon company Groupon is a small upstart that has quickly grown to be a big part of social coupons and a way for people to get great deals on daily products and services.

As stated by one of Groupon’s representatives in a blog post, the people at Groupon resisted using TV commercials for two years because they didn’t believe that they were worth the money and that they didn’t work very well. During the Super Bowl though, they released their first TV commercials.

The series of commercials unfortunately exploit bad things going on in the world, like the oppression of the Tibetan people, deforestation and the dwindling numbers of the whale population to make their TV spots successful. How did people react to the commercials?

The PR Angle:

Many people ended up being very offended by what Groupon did with its commercials. Exploiting others’ misery for your gain is not a good idea. Also, after doing some research, I could not find an instance where anyone from Groupon apologized for its misstep. After such a backlash from the public, making an apology would be a great thing for them to do. What they have said is that their commercials bring to light the atrocities going on in other countries. Like anyone believed for a second that that was their intention.

On the other hand, the people at Groupon are doing something good to make up for their lapse of judgment. They have set up ways for people to donate to the causes that were talked about in the commercials. They even say that Groupon will match donations up to $100,000 for the three featured charities.

“You can view the already aired commercials, as well as new ones as we release them, at SaveTheMoney.org. And if you’ve saved enough money for yourself and feel like saving something else, you can donate to mission-driven organizations that are doing great work for the causes featured in our PSA parodies. If you guys pony up, Groupon will contribute matching donations of up to $100,000 for three featured charities – Rainforest Action Network, buildOn, and the Tibet Fund — and Groupon credit of up to $100,000 for contributions made to Greenpeace.”

Check out a couple of the commercials I’ve posted here and let me know how you feel about them in the comments below.

Groupon Source

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Internship!

The situation:

Actually, no situation this time. In lieu of a story I want to just talk about how excited I am to start my new internship. Tomorrow will be the first opportunity for me to knock some hours off of the 200 hour requirement that Cal Poly Pomona puts on all graduating communication majors. I will be doing work for a new TV show that airs on the OC Channel called OC Crime Catchers.

OC Crime Catchers is an awesome ‘cold case’ style crime show that focuses only on crimes that took place in Orange County. I’ll be doing a lot PR/publicity for them so that their show can get off on the right foot and also learn how to do it properly from professionals. In fact, tomorrow will my first day doing work with them. I’ll be observing and doing a little photographing while they shoot some of the 3rd episode. It’s all VERY exciting. Finally, I get to put my learned skills to work and really do something for real.

For all who are interested, the show is also free to watch online if you missed it on TV.

You can find them here: OC Crime Catchers

Also, I want to take the time to thank my awesome supervisor at my current job for helping me make the connections to get the internship! Thanks Kathleen Kelton!

In the future, in addition to critiquing stories I’ll post updates on what’s going on with my internship.

Follow @nicklacroix