Friday, February 11, 2011

It's Time To Get A Life, People

The horror: Groupon axes controversial ad campaign

Groupon founder Andrew Mason has pulled a series of controversial ads that began running during the Super Bowl, saying "one thing is clear -- our ads offended a lot of people."

The announcement was on the company's official blog Thursday.

"We hate that we offended people, and we're very sorry that we did -- it's the last thing we wanted," Mason said. "We've listened to your feedback, and since we don't see the point in continuing to anger people, we're pulling the ads."

Mason said some of the ads may run again on Friday before the advertising schedule is fully rescinded.

In three spots that ran before, during and after Sunday's game, commercials that appeared to promote humanitarian and environmental causes -- most notably Chinese government oppression in Tibet -- swerved to become tongue-in-cheek pitches for Groupon deals.

Critics, many of whom took to Facebook and Twitter to complain, said the ads, directed by actor-director Christopher Guest of "This is Spinal Tap" and "Best In Show" fame, made light of serious situations.

Oh, for chrissakes.

I swear, it seems half the US population have turned into church ladies from the 1950's.

Etiquette tip: Being a moralizing prude makes one freakishly boring.

Besides, for my money you cannot have enough Elizabeth Hurley on TV.

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