What the hell is up with Groupon?

If you were unfamiliar with Groupon, you certainly got a weird introduction to it last night with the “Tibet” commercial. That ad was stunningly bizarre. However, if you have ever sat down and read a Groupon ad, last night’s commercial was not a surprise.
We talked about these ads in Crosstalk and I did a post way back. I was just re-reading it and thought I’d post it because it shows the truly bizarre advertising ideas that Groupon uses.
(This post is from September 2010) Have you subscribed to Groupon, the online coupon group? You sign up and they email offers to you. The deals are pretty good. I got a great deal on carpet cleaning through Groupon. However, if you stop and read the text, it contains some of the strangest writing I’ve ever seen.
Here’s the first one that caught my notice. It’s a Denver area Groupon. It contains an odd analogy:
A marriage between two cuisines is preferable to a marriage between two clones of Sylvester Stallone, a process that eventually results in a baby reared on raw egg and meat punching bags.
WTF? It’s an advertisement for a Denver restaurant that I think serves fusion cuisine. This is on the menu:
Mr. Croque, a sandwich of Black Forest ham and cambozola cheese with a champagne saucette ($9), puts taste buds on a first-name basis with pleasure, and samurai sea bass attacks hunger with preserved veggies, a miso-beurre blanc, and a rigid code of honor ($26).
“What exactly,” inquired one of my online friends, “is pleasure’s first name?” The ad never reveals it. I suppose you have to go to the restaurant to find out. My favorite analogy is further along in the ad:
An extensive menu of signature cocktails and a globally focused wine list give Japoix the libationary power of a team of mixologist Clydesdales.
Are horses working at the bar? Do horses have qualities that are desirable in a bartender? My husband wondered if, maybe, the copywriter was from another culture in which the compliment “Hey, that’s a real horse of a bartender!” is common.
At first, I thought the restaurant had a random, weird copy editor. However, this morning, I opened my Groupon offer for a mainicure/pedicure and was greeted with this analogy:
Your feet have felt neglected ever since you started walking on your hands, and your hands have been jealous of your feet ever since you sold your fingers to pay for college.
In this case, why bother with the manicure? Further on, the ad reads
The luxury mani-pedi gets metacarpal and metatarsal teams looking their best before competing with rhinoceros horns and flamingo plumage in the World Keratin Showcase.
Okay, WHAT????? Will my toes look like horns? Is the nail polish flamingo-colored? I’m so confused.
I shared this with a few friends on Gawker and found out that it’s not just Denver. “Lymed”, from DC, sent me this gem from a Groupon Golf Course ad in DC. I tried to read it to my husband over the phone but started laughing so hard at the Keebler trees that I could not continue.
Gentle creeks and tributaries flow through the 7,077-yard championship layout at Old Hickory Golf Club, which is lined with oak, maple, and hickory, and conspicuously vacant Keebler trees. The Bull Run Golf Club meanders through pictorial meadows and woodlands. Regardless of the course, masterfully avoid stepping on cracks that break mothers’ backs by rolling over them (mothers, that is) in the included golf cart.
The ad got off to a good start as well:
Golf, like professional wrestling, involves an inordinate amount of tossing chairs, wearing flashy costumes, and putting while a spandexed competitor has you in a sleeper hold.
Who are these people golfing with? “A Piece of the Continent” sent in the following text from a Chicago Groupon for a science museum:
Science is one of the world’s most marginalized subjects, often bullied by math, disregarded by geography, and ridiculed by gym class.
I actually don’t think that’s true. I know for a fact that gym class isn’t around any more and I believe the science majors are the only people with jobs these days. “Delta Sierra” posted an older one from Orange County, CA:
A grocery store is like a carnival midway-it offers shelves and shelves of goodies that only become available after lobbing baseballs at stacks of bottles.
That’s not how I used to shop but I’m going to start immediately.
Clearly, the same person is writing all of the copy for Groupon because these are some of the weirdest analogies on earth. They are startling in their bizarre similarity. Do you think that alcohol is involved? I imagine it’s a more mind-altering substance. I’d like to see more of these if anyone has them on hand. At first, I thought I’d write them and tell them to get a new writer, but now I’m getting sort of attached to these little gems. I wonder if they are actively trying to make them bad at this point.
Thanks to the awesome Gawker crosstalk posters who helped with the Groupon research: spikenard, lymed, A Piece of the Continent, Madfall, Nuclear Bore, Shady Esperanto, Bebe, Mother Gooch, Delta Sierra, tipsy_hausfrau, yearscomeandgo, naugahydeinplainsight, Daisy_Sage, lamey007. This is crossposted from bbqcornnuts.typepad.com