“You can’t save Tibet, but you can save 50% off a ‘Day of Beauty’ at the Oasis Spa!”
OK, maybe that’s overstating the point. But not by much. You can still hear the “thud” from Groupon‘s ads coming-out during the Super Bowl. The ads scored the lowest on the Brand Bowl‘s “Sentiment” rating with a -4.8. Only two other companies out of 39 went into negative numbers. (Sentiment is calculated as the percentage of positive tweets about the ad versus the negative tweets.) In pie chart form (everyone loves a pie chart), it looks like this:
Another interesting note: the number of tweets about the Groupon ads is actually climbing this morning. It’s watercooler stuff today, only not in a good way.
This article isn’t about how the ad campaign failed. It’s about how it could have succeeded. And I really only have one question:
How did Groupon, a company rich in understanding of social media, not use social media to co-produce an ad campaign with the audience?
I’m not pioneering an idea here. Doritos has had fan-made commercials for a few years. The company puts the ads up for a vote and runs the winner during the Super Bowl. This year’s winning ad cost just $500 to make. (Puzzlingly, the Doritos ad on YouTube has disabled sharing functionality.) Volkswagen, as Cory pointed out, had the great idea of posting “The Force” on YouTube before the ad appeared on television. There were 12 million views of “The Force” before it even hit TV. Does anyone think the TV audience thought: “Oh, I’ve seen that on YouTube. I’m going to the bathroom.” My guess is that the opposite happened, and that people who had seen the ad on YouTube were saying “Quiet! You have to see this ad!”
I suspect it’s not a coincidence that the Doritos and Volkswagen ads finished first and second, respectively, in the Brand Bowl ratings. Groupon had a shot at being at the top of the pack, too. Its product is well-known and very popular. Instead, Groupon went the usual route: hire an ad agency, make some ads, focus-group them, and put them on TV. That can work. But there’s a better way, especially for a socially-savvy company.
Groupon should have led the charge of social advertising. It could have used the millions of dollars it spent on TV ads and come up with a first-rate online campaign. You want a mass audience? Volkswagen has 15 million views of this writing for a campaign which cost exactly zero to post. Now, that’s not hundreds of millions of people, but it’s a dream target audience: people online who like to share social media. Sounds like Groupon’s key demographic to me.
Groupon would be smart to issue a self-deprecating statement today. You can diffuse a PR problem with humor and humility.
Online, the world is a focus group. You’re not stuck with the views of 20 people in a sweaty room watching ad after ad and rating them using those round meter knobs. You have unlimited potential for creativity, feedback and even production. If you have an ad that fails, you’ll know before it hits TV. The upside of Super Bowl ads is that you’re exposed to hundreds of millions of people. Same goes for the downside.