4 ms·
These ads seem to have been engineered from the start to stir up controversy, which in turn will generate more mentions of Groupon in the news cycle and on the
by zacman85 16y ago
These ads seem to have been engineered from the start to stir up controversy, which in turn will generate more mentions of Groupon in the news cycle and on the web. While I can appreciate the perspective that any press is good press, marginalizing these very real issues in the world to hock your product is just wrong and soulless. They could have easily invented hilarious fictitious issues and achieved a far less offensive message.
- eof 16y agoI haven't seen this ad but "wrong and soulless" seems a bit of a stretch unless they are causing actual harm, which I doubt. Taboo topics just generally bother me as a slippery-slope type situation; I mean, there is this confusion between talking about a thing (and thus evoking an emotional memory about said thing) and actually doing a thing. Calls for self censorship around taboo topics, especially with regard to humor seem to completely ignore that. In reality it's either funny or it's not. Any claims that "it's wrong" to laugh at such and such a joke are almost certainly without any logical/rational basis. When I make a dead baby joke (which I never do) I am not saying "dead babies are awesome." I don't mean to go off.. it's just a pet peeve of mine. For the record, I haven't liked Groupon since I read that sob story about the coffee shop that lost their ass with them.