Groupon Inc (NASDAQ: GRPN) To Air 30-Second Spot During 2018 Super Bowl
Groupon Inc (NASDAQ: GRPN) has announced that in next year’s Super Bowl it will feature in the advertising line-up. This will be the first time the online deals firm will be airing an ad during the Super Bowl since 2011. Shares of the online deals firm were relatively unmoved by the announcement as they only rose by 0.38% to close the day at $5.20 in Tuesday’s trading session. The announcement was made by Vinayak Hegde, the chief marketing officer of Groupon.
“…Super Bowl is the one event a year that everyone participates in … We’re excited to show the more than 110 million people watching the game just how easy and smart it is to make Groupon part of their daily lives,” said Hegde.
Political incorrectness
In Groupon’s last Super Bowl advert which aired in 2011 the online deals firm came under heavy criticism over what was seen as insensitivity. In the ad actor Timothy Hutton was featured talking about Tibetans and their challenges while promoting a deal on fish curry. A big number of viewers found the ad to be offensive as well as politically incorrect. At the time the co-founder of Groupon, Andrew Mason, was the chief executive officer.
[thrive_leads id=’8276′]
Since the departure of Mason in 2013 the business model of Groupon has evolved significantly and the company is keen to make a comeback to the title game of the National Football League. Sources refused to disclose what will be featured in the Super Bowl ad though there were hints that there will be an entertainment celebrity appearing.
Half-a-minute spot
Running for half a minute the Groupon ad is expected to be slotted between the Super Bowl’s 3rd and 4th quarters. A Super Bowl spot running for 30 seconds is costing $5 million though the online deals firm could pay lower than that since its ad will be appearing in the late stages of the game. However this comes with a risk as there is likely to be reduced viewership in the event that the game turns out to be a blowout.
Groupon’s return to high-profile advertising comes less than a fortnight since the online deals firm debuted a TV spot aimed at positioning the company as the ideal place to get a deal on last-minute gifts. The ad was made by O’Keefe, Reinhard & Paul Chicago, the advertising agency of record for Groupon. The online-deals firm decided to focus on last-minute gifting because indecisiveness has been identified as the number one reason why only 10% of Americans are able to have completed shopping for the festivities by mid-December.
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/312177/groupons-latest-stab-at-a-super-bowl-ad.html
