Groupon, like my Steelers, fumbles away Super Bowl chance

Groupon walked a thin between clever and classless with their Super Bowl campaign. It is impossible to make fun of a cause and not come out unscathed. You will likely lose those die hard supporters. The whale watching one was fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things. But the Tibet commercial? Mocking an entire society is a little different than a few whale lovers.

As Kenneth Cole showed us this week, using political strife and an uprising of an oppressed people is not a good idea. It will be interesting to see what Groupon does next. Do they apologize? or do they come out with a lame “we were bringing attention to this cause?” Or, do they ignore it completely.

Groupon has momentum. These Super Bowl ads could have given them a good push as competing services are beginning to appear. Was this a calculated risk to generate blog posts and YouTube shares after the game (doh, guilty).

What really gets me is that someone, somewhere, who makes considerably more than I do thought this ad was a good idea. As an advertising professional, that makes me sick.