Super Bowl announcement - Groupon Will Return to the Super Bowl This Year With a Spot Focused on Saving People Money
O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul will handle the creative
Groupon will have a spot in Super Bowl LII on Feb. 4, 2018. The deal provider’s 30-second spot will feature a yet-to-be-announced celebrity endorsement and focus on how the company saves people money. O’Keefe Reinhard & Paul, the company’s agency of record, will handle creative.
“We’ve made incredible progress over the past few years on our mission to build the daily habit in local—delivering an amazing customer experience and growing the size and scale of our massive mobile marketplace—making now the right time for us to come back to television’s biggest spectacle,” said Nicholas Halliwell, communications lead for Groupon, in a statement.
The last time Groupon was in the Big Game was 2011 with its ad “Tibet,” which featured actor Timothy Hutton. The ad was ill-conceived. As Adweek described it in 2011, it “poked fun at celebrity social cause commercials” and “noted the travails of Tibet, a pet cause of many Hollywood celebs, before segueing into a pitch for saving money at a Tibetan restaurant in Chicago.”
Groupon’s head of North America marketing, Jon Wild, explained that he’s been reminded of the “Tibet” spot on many occasions and that before choosing to return to the Super Bowl he watched the spot many times. As for lessons learned from the 2011 spot? “You have to stand out but you also have to make sure your message is clear and that your humor is not misconceived,” said Wild. “We have a clear message now.”
According to Wild, Groupon will release the full spot before the Big Game, which will allow the audience to interact with it. The company also has plans for a big social push to support the spot.
