Selfish Saving

There seems to be a theme emerging this week. While watching TV last night, I happened to see yet another commercial utilizing controversial methods to sell their product. 

The advertisement was Groupon's 2011 Super Bowl Commercial, "Tibet." 

The ad starts off almost as a public service announcement, saying that Tibet is in trouble, that their culture is in danger and needs our help. It then cuts to a restaurant scene where Timothy Hutton explains that regardless of that fact, they still "whip up an amazing fish curry." He continues talking about Groupon and all the money people saved on Tibetan food by using the website. The unsavory tagline of the commercial is, "Save the money."

I must say that I was incredibly disappointed with Groupon's commercial. The entire point of the website is to offer people discounts on various merchandise, restaurants, concerts, activities, etc. The message should, in my opinion, be something that encourages saving money, one that tells Groupon customers, "we understand that everyone is on a budget these days, here's a way to save some money." Wanting to cut back on spending should be considered a good thing, especially by a company whose MO is offering discounts. 

What this commercial does, however, is portray users of Groupon as selfish, greedy and without empathy. It implies that the "struggles of Tibet" don't matter to Groupon users, they don't want to save or help anyone else, they simply was to "Save the money." 

I think that this ad does a poor job of shedding a positive light on Groupon. Instead of promoting saving, i.e. their livelihood, they are mocking it and making it into a selfish and greedy act.