Groupon Tweaking Controversial Super Bowl Ads

Charitable aim to be made clearer after angry response
Posted Feb 8, 2011 3:50 AM CST

After receiving an overwhelmingly negative response (but plenty of free publicity), Groupon is going to rework its controversial ads first aired during the Super Bowl. The ads, spoof PSAs that were slammed for trivializing causes like Tibet, were supposed to encourage charitable donations—and they will be tweaked to make this more clear, Chicago Breaking Business reports.

"The last thing we wanted was to offend our customers—it’s bad business and it’s not where our hearts are," says CEO Andrew Mason, who stresses that he created a philanthropic site before he got into the online-discounting business. The company has set up a website to donate to causes featured in the commercials, and it will match donations up to $100,000.

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