Groupon Controversy--Please Read!
First, go here and read this, if you have any reaction whatsoever to the Super Bowl ads, or if you're interested in the controversy.
http://www.groupon.com/blog/cities/groupon-super-bowl-ads/
Groupon is already catching uber complaints about their ads, especially the one focused around Tibet. I didn't see the ad play live, but I saw tweets about it and started Googling out of curiousity. In Googling, I watched the Tibet ad AND read the above link.. Here are my thoughts.
1) Yes, totally in bad taste. Really probably shouldn't have been done if you ask me, especially without a little more explanation. Because guess what Groupon, a bunch of people watching the Super Bowl probably don't read your blog. Oh and it just usually isn't very good to joke about things like oppression in Tibet.
2) Good news, is that I think this link actually explains that they didn't mean it to be as tasteless as it seems at all. This isn't an EXCUSE, but it is nice (to me anyway) to know that the entire idea behind it is to make fun of themselves, and that they do actually have links to ways to help. But hey, guess what Groupon, when you air an INSIDE JOKE during the Super Bowl, it might fail. And yours did.
3) I don't think people should necessarily delete their Groupon accounts. Express your disgust please--I'm sure plenty of you already are.
4) Hey, good news for all you people who are really offended by the ads! At the bottom of the link I posted at the top, there are links to go and contribute to all three of the issues that were raised by the ads. So, since you're super upset about it, you don't just have to write a letter to Groupon, you can actually DO SOMETHING FOR TIBET and check out that link.
5) As an addition to #4, they really should have told us ON THE ADS how to help each individual issue.
6) Last but not least, these are my least favorite Christopher Guest directed videos.
That's all, just a few thoughts. I totally get the outrage, but I also really want everyone to read that Groupon link so they can AT LEAST see what Groupon's intention was before they delete their accounts, or say that Groupon is awful. Please, share your thoughts with me here.