Sunday, February 6, 2011

the spot Groupon could've run instead

According to BrandBowl (at least at this hour) the two top Superbowl spots are my own choices: Chrysler's "Imported from Detroit" (proof that copywriting still matters) and Volkswagen's "Little Darth Vader" (proof of the storytelling power of visuals.)

We diverge in choices for last place, however. Tweeters gave that to Suzuki, but my pick (and I've got company) is Groupon which (surprisingly) aired spots that were even more offensive than Go Daddy's typically gratuitous use of GURLs. What made Groupons spots appalling was the cultural cluelessness in exploiting oppressed peoples and endangered rainforests to make sophomoric jokes about saving money.

Apparently, they were only kidding. Their site suggests that they donate to the very causes they belittled. But do they really expect disenfranchised consumers inundated with ad messages to go trawling the web in search of their good deeds?

I understand that the brand was under pressure to come up with creative in very little time. But why didn't they run with something like this simple but memorable spot they already had. Youtube says it was rejected. By whom? Calling Bogusky.

3 comments:

Mak said...

I am from Michigan, and checked my facebook after the Super Bowl. The #1 thing people were talking about was the "Imported from Detroit" ad. This was a very powerful ad for us, and hopefully everyone else in the country!

Howie said...

OMG that was AWESOME! Yes big fail huh. Media Curves tracked the sentiment the traditional way and Chrysler came in 40th. I also found big holes in the Brandbowl. What do you like? The commercial? The brand? The product? Will you buy? Same for negative sentiment.

While I loved the Passat spot a lot all I know about the car is I can turn it on with a key chain.

Ad Broad, oldest working writer in advertising said...

Thanks for weighing in Makolyte. Great thing about that ad, imho, was that you didn't have to be from Detroit to love it.

THanks for the laugh, Howie. I guess the Passat spot was more brand advertising than retail. But good to know it comes with a key fob, right? Re: brandbowl, I think it's a noble experiment that's still getting kinks worked out. FAR better than last year and I expect Mullen will improve for 2012.