Groupon-gate

Relatively new, inconspicuous companies have an important goal when introduced to the market- to notably position your brand and get your company known. Advertisers and PR reps stretch their morality thin concocting ads and publicity that will be memorable, infamously or not. Queue the cliché, “Any press is good press.”

Groupon is a company that was essentially invisible before they kicked down the doors of decency during the Superbowl XLV. Their parody to the suffering of Tibet was supposedly used to poke fun at their business, one that survives off trivial spending. Millions of viewers didn’t see the juxtaposition in such a comedic light and Groupon was castigated for their poor taste, eventually pulling all of the ads.

Their PR team had to have warned them of risky and unattractive consequences. There are questions and concerns that should have been addressed before airing.

- How many people have an emotional investment with Tibet and other grass-root organizations

- Is our advocacy for these organizations evident in the ads

- What kind of an image will we assume

- Will this be easy to fix

- Is it worth it?

Cleaning up this mess looked like a field trip to hell. Seemingly, media attention was more important for Groupon than brand image. Although, in 2011, all media is global media and marketing strategies must be designed to acknowledge that. I think the backlash was more than Groupon expected, because their crisis management wasn’t too solid. There were many routes that could have been taken yet their response didn’t seem thought out. The letter from Andrew Mason, Groupon’s CEO, assured that any damage done wasn’t intended and his angle for the ad was to be funny. He went on to point the blame at the ad agency, Crispin Porter & Bogusky, for their tendency to add controversy to their creativity. His words were defensive and poorly executed and Mason was criticized for it. Instead of implying “you’re just too stupid to get the humor,” he should have carried a more sympathetic tone. It’s important to understand the differences between values and ethics of other people, especially when you’re attempting to sell to a huge audience of key publics.

Now Groupon is better known and their business seems steady, at least in America. On the other hand, Groupon’s image isn’t exactly favorable by the masses just yet. Whether it’s the interesting approach to humor or indifference for sensitivity, the company was careless with it’s first major ad campaign. The role of PR in a campaign is especially crucial during the Superbowl; what people are saying the next day is what really matters. Either the PR reps were ignored or they were slacking.

Lara Logan and Media Sexism

A few weeks ago, there was an explosive conversation (debate) in my Race, Gender and the Media class. It started with somebody mentioning Lara Logan, the CBS news correspondent who was sexually assaulted while covering the Egyptian protests. Logan, accord­ing to an offi­cial CBS announce­ment, was attacked by a group of about 200 Egyp­tians and “suf­fered a bru­tal and sus­tained sex­ual assault and beat­ing before being saved by a group of women and an esti­mated 20 Egypt­ian sol­diers.” Unfortunately, the reaction to Logan’s tragedy was not of sympathy or respect, rather an intense media debate about women’s place in danger zones. Instead of criticism being focused on the mob who attacked Logan, it was placed directly on Logan herself. This woman was actually assaulted, then blamed for it because she’s attractive, has blonde hair and should have known what she was getting herself into.

Of course, this is disgusting. I have trouble glorifying these comments by acknowledging them. Funny enough, someone in class had the audacity to agree. Basically, this person asked how anyone can really be surprised? Elaborating that this is pretty much expected when you put an attractive female in a barbaric place like Egypt. My (correct) professor went off. Rightfully so! Here’s the problem with this: This woman gets the one of the biggest career opportunities to cover this protest, she’s fiercely competing with men to get this chance, she’s already mustering more courage than most people could think of, and then suddenly she’s supposed to say, “Oh, wait, ya know guys, I’m a woman, this is probably not such a good idea, I mean, I might get raped or something right? Please give me more protection.” Why would she think this? Her job is implicitly dangerous. Suggesting that women need more protection is condemning women as a burden, more expensive to employ and more demanding to protect. Anything could happen at any time, to any human. The fact women are more likely to get raped doesn’t discount that we’re less likely to be a target of murder. There’s possible danger for everybody; saying women need extra protection is vocalizing a difference between men and women and, by definition, is sexist.

The second half to this problem is the assumption, or stereotype, of Egypt as an uncivilized, barbaric country, expected to behave like this. Life in Cairo is actually very progressive and Westernized. Women appear unveiled and have rights and are not, in fact, public raping tools. The combination of this erroneous stereotype and sexism as justification for Lara Logan’s sexual assault is severely flawed.

There is no consolation for a woman that was forced to endure such brutal attacks, but there is seriously no right to blame the victim. The people in my class weren’t malicious for thinking such things, but even the most unconscious sexism is socially toxic.