Controversial Groupon Commercial

The average television commercial last thirty seconds. Within those thirty seconds, a commercial can make you feel happy, sad, encouraged and so much more. Whatever emotion they're targeting, the ending goal of almost every commercial is to persuade you to use their product. However sometimes, these companies take the idea of persuading you too far and in the end have the opposite effect of what they planned. By violating persuasive ethics, companies can disrespect or offend their viewers, making them not want to use their product at all. An example of this violation was in 2011 when Groupon aired a commercial during the Super Bowl trying to get viewers to join their online coupon service.

When the commercial first starts, the line "The people of Tibet are in trouble" is said by Timothy Hutton, an American actor and director. He then goes on to show images of the poor children in Tibet and he describes how the Tibetan culture is in jeopardy. All of a sudden the commercial switches directions and Hutton states that "They still whip up an amazing fish curry". Stating that if you had Groupon you could get thirty dollars of Tibetan food for just fifteen dollars. In my opinion, this is a violation of persuasive ethics and is highly disrespectful to the people of Tibet.

This video was highly controversial and a lot of people felt exactly the same way I felt after I watched it. In an NPR interview, Louisa Lim states that "Tibet supporters say it trivializes the suffering and oppression of Tibetans under Chinese rule".  They offended the Tibetan culture and made it seem like their suffering didn't matter and there was nothing anyone could do to help. What was the need to bring in the poor suffering children and beautiful views of the country? What point was Groupon trying to get at? Their service had nothing to do with helping the people of Tibet.

 Groupon then tried to defend its commercial by saying that their concept while making the commercial was to show that groups of people can come together to help a cause. Were they talking about the cause of saving themselves money with their service? Because nothing was said about how people could help the culture of Tibet. 

In the end, this commercial didn’t achieve its intended purpose. Yes it did receive a lot of attention in the media due to how controversial it was but not the right kind of intention. People looked down upon Groupon for making such an offensive commercial and stopped using their service. Groupon not only violated persuasive ethics but offended a culture.

Sources:

Groupon's 'Tibet' Super Bowl Ad: Harmless Fun Or Offensive? (n.d.). Retrieved September 11, 2015.

Groupon: Tibet