Groupon's Tibet Ad: When Edgy Goes Overboard

The ad that I saw with Elizabeth Hurley or whatever her name is was just as egregous. What is wrong with you people? It is not OK to do this! Take a serious situation and get real campy with it? I will not even think of using Groupon ... that is the only way this stops.

What I'm sick of is that every company these days is positioning itself as being socially "responsible" and has some cause it's affiliating with. Just make and sell products and make a profit, already! Consumers don't realize that all that "good will" is actually costing them more. If I want to support a cause, I'll do it myself, thank you.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky & Groupon see themselves as clever provocateurs; when in fact they are sad hypocrites.

Trying to buy a Charity Org shield to gain credibility is impossible at this point, they were blatant, shameless, and even proud of being #1 Twit-err; until the double edge of the sword revealed itself.

Word on the street: Their I.P.O. is D.O.A. ;-o

"On one level, I don't think Tibet ever gets enough news so I was really happy there was some exposure."

Agreed.

Really dont people have real crap to be angry about instead of a super bowl commercial. I was more angry that an American women does not know the words to our national anthem. How about after 9-11 when every charity in the world was using the tragedy for their own cause. As Americans were vulnerable. Really the people of Tibet who have been there for thousands of years, we are going to angry over a commercial.

....and Groupon (who is a great company, that hires a lot of great people) is getting millions of dollars worth of publicity from this ad...and by the way...these PC types need to get a life! If you feel so strongly about the Tibetan cause....do something about it..instead of sitting on your couch, in your 2000 square foot, heated and air conditioned homes, watching a sports game that pays it's players 10's of millions of dollars for playing a game! Maybe you could sell your "Smart Cars" and ride a bike to work...then donate your savings to the Tibetan cause!! Just a thought!!!

I thought that this was the best ad of the night!!! It was witty and caught me totally off guard!!! Celebs are always going off on some issue, which after a while seems less sincere, and more "self promoting". I think that is part of what they were poking fun at. GREAT AD!!! Sorry that some people didn't get the humor.

i always tought that to be in advertising at least you should know what you were talking about curry is used in india not in tibet and when your are so high in the mouintains it is very hard to get fish so people in tibet dont eat that much fish ad people should realise that people pay attention to what they say so i hope they pay attention to what they are saying

This is what happens when a 20's something kid becomes a CEO of a worldwide company that has no real leadership. 20's something maybe able to come up with ideas that catch the wave in the new media arena but they don't have the social sense or emotional growth that comes with time to understand what offends people. There sense of "whats funny" or "whats important" do not relate to the general public. I signed up for Groupon to see what it was all about, after a couple of weeks of meaningless offers and then this insulting TV ad I drop them and so have many of my friends.

What is the issue here? I didn't catch the China/Tibet issue either. To me it was a call to protect a culture or a history rather than a political system. Political systems are what make a culture function not what defines them.