Groupon Fail?

I’ve been meaning to do a post about social media coupon sites such as Groupon and SocialLiving for a while now (and I still will). However, first I want to take a spin on Groupons advertising. This post isn’t about the cool effects of Groupon, rather about the Superbowl ad that it ran this past Sunday – a first time advertising in the main stream for the company. As a loyal Groupon follower (Cleveland, Rochester and Buffalo – excessive??), when I first heard that Groupon was going to advertise at the Superbowl I thought it was a fantastic idea. Most people haven’t heard of Groupon yet, and what better way to raise brand awareness then the most popular commercial time-spot ever? Yes, by the numbers Superbowl advertising has a very low ROI, however for a small startup internet company, this is the place to spread your name and increase brand awareness (remember those “Go Daddy” commercials a few years ago?).

Unfortunately, the fantastic idea of advertising was overshadowed by a poor taste add by their advertising firm, Crispin Porter & Bogusky. I know of this firm, and have admired them for their risky advertising that is highly effective with audiences. They came up with a campaign to show how Groupon works while trying to promote a charity and executed it poorly. It’s just too much for a new company to showcase on one of the biggest advertising days of the year. People want dancing dogs or Ozzy to entertain them while they are drinking their beer and eating nachos. Anything deeper than that goes over their heads and therefore ends up on the “worst ads” lists. What watchers didn’t realize is that this ad went further and was continued online. If you paid close attention, you would realize that this campaign was titled “Save the Money” and encouraged you to go online to http://savethemoney.groupon.com/ and watch celebrities explain how the money you saved can be given to charities around the world. Good idea – but still too much for Superbowl Sunday. The New York Times wrote an article about it and it’s worth a read: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/business/media/08adco.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss.

Overall, I still love Groupon and in my opinion the ad was semi-successful. After seeing the ad, I brought up to my friends how great I think the site is… which they had never heard of. We went on to discuss it for 10 minutes or so, and I followed up with a link to join. If getting people to join is what Groupon was trying to do with their advertisement then I’d say they were successful… otherwise, try again.

The Magic... the Memories...

Lately, I’ve been seeing Disney World advertisements everywhere. I’ve seen Disney ad’s on my favorite websites, riding in the subway, on tv and even on Bloomberg. It could be a couple things… first of all I’ve been reading about Disney a lot online and have visited their website quite a few times as I am looking to take a summer internship there. The more I visit the site, the more that the Internet God’s (aka cookies) know that it is one of my interests and therefore target me for their ads. Another reason is that Disney must have launched quite the advertising campaign. In early 2011 they launched their “Let the Memories Begin” campaign which is targeting families and young children through online and tv ads. I'm also quite intrigued about Disney's online efforts in terms of social media. Their view on social media being the new scrapbook is fantastic (and so so true). My guess is that they are ramping up the campaign in January as families start to think of spring break plans. Here’s the newest commercial (watch out, it might bring you back to your childhood and make you cry!)