Lesson Learned: The Strategic and Creative Stars Must Align. Posted on February 18, 2011 Post a comment

Advertising rule #1: There are no rules. Advertising suggestion #1: Creative should have a purpose and offending people isn’t necessarily a good one.

Last Sunday, before, during and after the Super Bowl, Groupon ran a series of ads—their first flight of TV advertising in the company’s history. The spots left some people wide-eyed and confused, some laughing, some uncomfortable, and a whole lot offended. On first glance, the ads looked like public service announcements about important global causes, but then the spots flipped to reveal they were actually promotions for Groupon deals. One of the ads opened with a discussion of the devastation and turmoil in Tibet, which was later met with: “But they still whip up an amazing fish curry. And since 200 of us bought at Groupon.com, we’re each getting $30 worth of Tibetan food for just $15…”

Strategy: The element of surprise.

Okay, fair enough. Surprises in advertising are a powerful tool, especially as people become increasingly more desensitized to marketing communications. Companies and agencies have to stretch their creative muscle more than ever and demand attention in new ways. That said, these spots sure did deliver a shock. So much so that the blogosphere and message boards lit up with powerful critiques of the ads, saying they were in bad taste and made light of serious subjects.

Upon pulling the ads after several days of complaints, Groupon Founder Andrew Mason made a statement that he was sorry for offending people and that the ads were meant to poke fun at Groupon in a joking, tongue-and-cheek way. He was apologetic for any pain the ads caused and added that they took the risky approach hoping that “if anything, they would bring more funding and support to the highlighted causes.”

Strategy: Huh?

This is where the story starts to fall apart for me. I mean, great, you want to highlight that your company donates lots of money to charities (an expected $500,000 says an article from CNN.com), but then why do none of the spots actually talk about this? Not only does the strategy completely fall apart and the ads now seem to be banking 100% on shock value, but they actually mock the issues at hand—serious issues that countless viewers hold close to their hearts.

This situation is exactly what we mean when we talk about not doing creative for creative’s sake. Creative must have a point. It must have a reason for being so funny, crazy, thought provoking, or dare I say “flip” that the ad simply wouldn’t work otherwise. Because in the end, ads have to work. That’s what they’re there for.

Lastly, it should be said that believe you me, I love a truly outrageous creative idea and I can appreciate what Groupon and their agency were trying to do. What I can’t understand is why they didn’t look at these executions with a strategic eye and determine what they really said for the brand. Mason himself claims, “While we’ve always been a little quirky, we certainly aren’t trying to be the kind of company that builds its brand on creating controversy…”

So in the end, did the creative get attention? Yes. Did the creative do what it was supposed to do? No.

And with those two questions answered, it seems to me that’s all we need to know. I guess it’s true what they say about the most important lessons being the most painful to learn.

Sources:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web/02/11/groupon.ad/index.html?hpt=P1
http://www.slashgear.com/groupon-pulls-controversial-ads-13133184/