Right before, during, and after the Super Bowl, Groupon ran three different ads for their online coupon site.
Watch this one and see what you think.
Immediately after these aired, twitter and other news sites were abuzz with disdain for the tasteless nature of the ads. Why did these ads fall short?
Groupon intended this as a sarcastic ad which poked fun at consumerism in light of Tibet’s fading cultural heritage. It starts as a public service announcement for the plight of the Tibetan people, it ends with Timothy Hutton telling you he just saved $15 on his dinner. For a further explanation of the ad, here is Groupon’s reasoning behind it.
Being able to understanding sarcasm changes with age. Children, under 12, primarily use intonation as the cue for sarcasm (Capelli, Nakagawa, & Madden, 1990). Adults, however, are able to use intonation or contextual information. In this commercial though, both cues that usually signal sarcasm lead you to the wrong conclusion. The sarcastic context is subtle and there is no intonation to lead viewers to the sarcastic meaning. Without more information, viewers easily misinterpret the ad’s context and assume Groupon is trying to profit and make fun of Tibetans and their plight.
Because the sarcasm in Groupon’s joke fell flat for many watching, maybe advertisers should stick with associating sex (or sexy women) with their product (see below for an example).
Capelli, C., Nakagawa, N., & Madden, C. (1990). How Children Understand Sarcasm: The Role of Context and Intonation Child Development, 61 (6) DOI: 10.2307/1130840
The problem is it’s a satire on consumerism that then turns into a real advert for exactly that consumerism.
It’s like saying “The KKK are an upstanding organization of decent American citizens…obviously I’m only joking.
…
p.s seriously though I don’t like black people.”
Almost all of what you say happens to be supprisingly accurate and it makes me wonder the reason why I hadn’t looked at this with this light before. Your piece really did switch the light on for me personally as far as this particular subject matter goes. However at this time there is just one position I am not necessarily too cozy with and while I try to reconcile that with the central theme of the point, allow me see just what all the rest of the subscribers have to say.Well done.
I as well as my buddies were actually reviewing the best suggestions located on your site and at once I got a horrible suspicion I never expressed respect to the web blog owner for those secrets. Those women happened to be as a consequence passionate to study them and have in effect definitely been taking pleasure in these things. Thank you for being well considerate and also for having this sort of tremendous subject matter most people are really eager to be aware of. My personal sincere apologies for not expressing gratitude to you sooner. Netload Premium Account Generator http://www.crackcreateworld.com
Nice to be visiting your blog once again, it has been months for me. Well this article that will I’ve been waited for that long. Great webpage brother We are gona inform this to any or all my friends and associates.