Feb 07
Believe it or not, one aspect of last night’s Super Bowl broadcast actually managed to garner worse reviews that the Steelers’ first-half performance and that trainwreck of a half-time show. Groupon got slammed with nearly universal outrage online, after the airing of its Tibet ad during last night game.
The ad, which abruptly shifts from a seeming impassioned plea for Tibet to a light-hearted spot for online savings, was largely regarded as insensitive exploitation of the plight of a nation. The spot almost immediately drew comparison’s to Kenneth Cole’s recent attempt at humor in the wake of massive Egyptian protests.
The site’s CEO, Andrew Mason, doesn’t really get what all of the fuss is about. Mason told The Wall Street Journal that the spot was just “a spoof” and that he really didn’t regard it as offensive. Groupon for its part, was working on raising funds for Tibet prior to the airing of the ad–a bit of information that would have no doubt lend some context to the ads that were quickly dismissed as insensitive.
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