fuck the assholes who write copy for Groupon

http://i.imgur.com/o9Xby.png

....it's a living

they're only assholes if they don't hate their job

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOmoEEMytg

group poop on

i remember reading in the nyt feature that groupon writers can't use pop culture references. i guess that cookie monster ref slipped thru

When not playing golf, old-time gentlemen competed against each other in cigar-smoking relays and games of pin-the-top-hat-on-the-donkey. Tip your hat at a new pastime with today's Groupon: for $99, you get a nine-hole play-through golf lesson at the Brian Mogg Performance Center of Hawaii, which is located at the Hawaii Prince Golf Club in Ewa Beach (a $215 value).

While walking for a mile in another person’s shoes develops empathy, walking for a mile in an astronaut’s shoes means you’re too far from the shuttle to be retrieved. Take a walk in earth-friendly footwear with today’s Groupon: for $15, you get $30 worth of 100% recyclable sandals from Okabashi.

Before man conquered his fear of water, he amused himself with dust sports such as pushing boulders off cliffs, wrestling tumbleweeds, and falling in the dust. Boldly go where our aquaphobic forebears dared not with today's Groupon: for $55, you get a group surf lesson (an $80 value) and outrigger-canoe ride (a $30 value) at Big Wave Dave Surf Co. (a $110 total value).

Without beauty parlors, hair would look to the sports section for highlights and faces would be forced to seek radiance by falling asleep in plates of glitter. Take advantage of professional beauty providers with today's Groupon to Elements Spa & Salon. Choose between the following options:

i think Groupon's days are numbered

no this stuff seems like it's worth a trillion dollars

A bunch of theater/improv/music folks I know in Chicago have these writing jobs. The house style actually frustrates me, because if I'm going to get a deal in my in-box, I just want to get to the real details.

otm!!

that's what drives me nuts. you guys are selling me restaurant gift certificates not handmade mittens on Etsy

yeah i know a few ppl that write for groupon, incl an ex-roommate

it's interesting to me that they value writing, but i'm not exactly sure why they do

i would do this conceivably but i don't think could write this stuff w/o making pop culture references

You could make fake pop culture references.

it's interesting to me that they value writing, but i'm not exactly sure why they do

their target demographic is basically identical to their writers, only better employed? seems like a kind of signaling to me (if i'm using that term right)

ha my girlfriend does these like mad for 'living social'. i did a few for her back around the holidays to pick up some extra cash. i can think of few instances in my life where i hated myself and humankind in general more than when i was slogging through these "silly, pithy" fuckers.

it's like other direct marketing, only with a bird on it

i knew someone who would employ this cutesy-bonkers style on flyers/postcards for parties/concerts and every time it was just like bro i would lol at this if you sent me it as a pdf just as a joke but you went and printed 1000 copies? no ones going to read your jokes about Spanish cats and vegan ninjas and decide to come see prins thomas play records next month smdhx100000

I feel like I'm constitutionally incapable of even writing in that style. It would make me really self-conscious.

When a herd of highland cattle with particularly harmonious horns congregated in a muddy field one June day in 1961 the first moosic festival was born. Seek pastures new with today’s Groupon at Truck Festival.

There are a select few instances where a deliberately "off-beat!!" writing style in the service of marketing works but they are incredibly rare.. the only one I can think of off the top of my head is the liner notes Areal Records used to write. One of them ended "Yes mom, I can butter-trance!" I loved that.

feel like i could do this in my sleep tbh

Haha I found it.

Completley bereft of sense, Lansleg surrendered to the snorting and crunching of the mailcarriage that rumbled in an unpredictable monotony through a gloomy plain, pulled by a gigantic centipede. And even while the horn was announcing the speedy arrival in another place, he knew, that he wouldn’t want to stay there...

[ selvsyn]On Sundays, when grandma decorated small fatrolls on the edge of his plate in a loving way, Wolfram regularly vanished into an adventurous sweet world made of butter mountains and milklakes. And even now, almost 20 years later, in any club a melancolic thrill runs through him: Yes grandma, I can buttertrance

"I feel like I'm constitutionally incapable of even writing in that style. It would make me really self-conscious."

yeah it's really tough for me. my gf said after doing a few it would just snap and they would start coming really easily. this was not my experience.

she still dreads them, but mostly because she's busy with other stuff at her real job.

Also see woot.

That clear debris bin holds more than dust, dander, dirt, crumbs, and pet hair. It holds… secrets.

“Still not ready to talk, eh, Dyson? Well, I can do this all night. Mark my words: you will not leave these four walls until you tell us where you hid the stolen gold dust. Not alive, anyway.”

whvvv whvvvv vruuuum

“You’re damn right it’s a threat! You’re lucky that’s all it is right now! You say one more thing about your so-called right to a lawyer and they’ll have to wheel you out of here on a gurney instead of your easy, maneuverable yellow ball. Now, one more time: where’s the gold dust?”

lol hey PP here's one i did for a Little Rock breakfast place called "B-Side"

Sometimes the 'B' side is better than the 'A' side. And when it comes to breakfast, B-Side is a stone cold classic. Today's deal gets you $20.00 worth of grub for $10.00, and (drumroll) ...this includes alcohol. So come give the frittata of the day a spin. Maybe you're feeling a sentimental favorite like buttermilk blueberry pancakes. Or perhaps a mountain of biscuits, sausage, Pommes Rӧsti, with house made sausage gravy and 2 pan-fried eggs (aka "Biscuit Mountain") fits the bill. Sad songs and waltzes might not be selling this year, but B-Side's brunch is blowing up.

^seriously, they were all like this or way worse. *vomit*

When I was in a band, I was the guy who wrote the e-mail updates we sent to our fans, and I always had trouble striking the right hip-and-breezy "Hola, amigos"-ish tone that seemed to be required in order to prevent the e-mail from being just a boring info dump. But I'm someone who tends to deliberate over words a lot. (Like even just now, I wrote "hip, breezy," then changed it to "breezily hip," then realized that wasn't quite right, etc.)

http://o.onionstatic.com/images/personalities/personality/1020/character4_jpg_90x150_upscale_q85.jpg

Actually, I should have just written all the e-mails as Jim Anchower.

it's been a while since i last rapped at ya

Groupon's going for a kind of deadpan/absurd Colbert thing.

is groupon for assholes?

like most people really who always talk about getting "A GOOD DEAL" on everything all the time are among the most tiresome imaginable, and then you add the internet.

apparently they're lousy tippers? or maybe that was people that use Open Table.

Maybe Groupon should look into hiring proper copywriters to write these things... this stuff is worse than nothing.

Groupon and similar sites here (Scoopon/Living Social etc) just got an absolute panning in the Age yesterday - and the comments on the article were also pretty eye opening. Basically the only way this shit works is oversubscribing the offers, but its the coupon company that skims off all the profit: the stores end up swamped and cant/wont honor deals, and thus the customer gets ripped off too (deals expiring within weeks, but no bookings available, etc)

Put me off ever consideirng using such a system.
http://www.theage.com.au/money/planning/catch-in-coupon-special-offers-20110802-1i8nz.html

surprised no-one has cross-ref'd this w/ the Innocent Smoothie thread seeing as this reads like it's totally a product of that whole mess

do i dare ask

Does the entire Innocent Smoothies aesthetic strike you as deeply fucking irritating?

wait there's a chain of smoothie shops on the island of brittain called innocent smoothies?

it's a brand, like fresh samantha or odwalla or whatever

I still maintain it sounds like a teenie porn site.

again, like fresh samantha

Ha, I don't know what Fresh Samantha is, but OK.

imagine anything with variations on 'fresh' or 'natural' in the name can prolly sound like teenie porn if you strain enough

Has anyone else started getting Groupon-like deals from Amazon in their inbox every day?

no, because i immediately unsubscribe from any bullshit like that and so should you!

Beats me how companies come up with the "value" of these "deals." Like, "A $110 value can now be had for $70!" Well obviously it's really worth $70. It's like a department store sale where the "original retail price" is so high that no one would pay it, but the "sale" price is exactly what the going rate is, the sweet spot. To me Groupon is just advertising under a thin guise.

no no it's because they actually want to give you a really good deal! they are just being super-nice!

http://posiescafe.com/wp/?p=316

^one cafe owner's groupon experience

I think the only Groupons that I've bought are for restaurants, and I have been able to get some decent discounts.

The one time it sort of burned me is when I went to an Indian restaurant with Eazy, and we realized that we were just shy of the $40 minimum order that the Groupon required, so we ordered a couple of drinks, but then that put us far enough over $40 that the Groupon essentially just paid for our drinks but didn't save us any money on on our original intended order.

I got a pretty awesome $25 groupon for a local bar that has a great scotch selection. It didn't exclude drinks, so we just sat around drinking $10 glasses of scotch

Beats me how companies come up with the "value" of these "deals." Like, "A $110 value can now be had for $70!" Well obviously it's really worth $70. It's like a department store sale where the "original retail price" is so high that no one would pay it, but the "sale" price is exactly what the going rate is, the sweet spot. To me Groupon is just advertising under a thin guise.

― calstars, Friday, August 5, 2011 3:00 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

i havent read cozen's link yet but ive talked to a few (bar and restaurant) business owners who fucked with groupon and said they actually take an incredible loss but its worth it for the marketing

also calstars do you know how Groupon works? in most cases you get a gift certificate worth X amount of dollars for half the listed price.

i mean unless you're on some wake up sheeple ~what is value really~ shit

there are plenty of groupon horror stories -- i think gawker ran one of their exposes or w/e

Does the entire Innocent Smoothies aesthetic strike you as deeply fucking irritating?

― 'what's puzzling you' is the name of my dog (DJ Mencap), Friday, August 5, 2011 7:11 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

btw this is easily one of the most lasting thread titles on ilx for me. idk shit about innocent smoothies but at least once a week i'm think "god, what a deeply fucking irritating aesthetic" to myself

Dry, but another reason it's going to be interesting to see whether they boom or bust:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-04/groupon-s-strikeouts-reveal-an-unspoken-truth-jonathan-weil.html

groupon is p. wack imo, but i can't say i have tons of sympathy for cafe owners who don't even understand what their basic expenses are.

I almost feel bad for small restaurants who have no idea how to actually do coupons and get talked into a ridiculous deal with Groupon. But then, I remember that they're running a business and there are about a million and one ways they could screw up and that is just one

its it like 70% of restaurants close down in their first year? i get so sad when i see a new restaurant closing, wether i ever ate there or not-- cause i know it means someone's hopes and dreams and hard work have been smashed to pieces, and its probably all their own fault http://i.imgur.com/rGfui.gif

isn't it like

There are many groupon horror stories, which are a drop in the bucket of businesses that end up happy w groupon. Theyve made stats about it public and the vast majority of places have positive results

I do find the copy annoying, groupons are obviously worthwhile sometimes

Fwiw re: hiring "real copywriters" - thats... Exactly what they've done. They've also got a ful editorial team that comes out of like textbook publishing. And apparently, based on market research, this kind of copy works rlly well w their target demo so

Not defending it I think the companies aesthetic is corny but they employ gajillions of writers with salaried positions so kudos to them

haha i think that makes me even more angry about it

xpost re: this annoying style working well w/ their target audience

they kind of stole the house style of woot.com

They've also got a ful editorial team that comes out of like textbook publishing.

One of my coworkers left here (you know where I work) to take a job as a copy editor at Groupon. Paid substantially better.

its it like 70% of restaurants close down in their first year? i get so sad when i see a new restaurant closing, wether i ever ate there or not-- cause i know it means someone's hopes and dreams and hard work have been smashed to pieces, and its probably all their own fault

And then I see the CANCUN CYBER CAFE setting its grand opening off of the main drag through the blue-collar part of town and smdh.

Dry, but another reason it's going to be interesting to see whether they boom or bust:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-04/groupon-s-strikeouts-reveal-an-unspoken-truth-jonathan-weil.html

― saint dominic's p4k review (Eazy), Friday, August 5, 2011 9:35 AM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark

wow, even with their accounting practices they're prioritizing retarded meaningless cutsey bullshit!!!

Well thats because they have a product anyone can sell, so branding is everything

If their target demo is idiots, then I understand the approach. I only figured they weren't professional copywriters because of some NY Times article ... it talked about Groupon hiring poets, musicians, and journalists to write these things. They read like the creations of some brain-damaged inmate on the cusp of becoming an outsider-art curiosity.

they read like a theater kid's blog posts

I think they sound like underpaid, low-experience copywriters trying to sound cutesy.

It'd be pretty great if they had actual mentally-unbalanced people

gr80 otm actually

Well they hire lots of those too but the writing style is a v strict house style. I should backpedal slightly here - they don't want pro ad copywriters or something, just ppl who can nail the aesthetic

Lol grady they employ and the style was created by chicago improv kids

Yeah, theater kids is probably closer. I just like the idea that the whole Groupon creative campaign is the brainchild of a lone man in a padded cell drooling all over himself. Or really any campaign for that matter. "Make this ad about baloney!!" "But we're selling photo albums." "Trust me!"

huh, thought i posted something on this thread. it probably ended up in the Blink 182 thread or something.

i just think it's insane that there's no limit to the coupons. like, how are businesses supposed to plan for that?

haha i JUST NOW got the pun in this stupid company's name...!? wtf @ me.

Lol grady they employ and the style was created by chicago improv kids

― Gatsby was a success, in the end, wasn't he? (D-40), Friday, August 5, 2011 10:24 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

haha knew it.

I basically just think the meme about them fucking over businesses is basically untrue. Its like an ebay store w a 98% positive rating and a really large number of sales. They are impish for having a v v responsive customer service dept; the one time I thought I got fucked over by a coupon they did a full refund immediately

Lol they are impish!! They are KNOWN

lol i was going to spend at least 5 minutes trying to figure out what you meant there

autocorrect the news

do we have a thread dedicated to deej's phone fucking up his posts yet

i was about to go on a rant about groupon/social buying with lots of fun supporting articles but then i remembered this thread is about copy.

their copy is lame.

i give you permission to turn this into the all-purpose groupon thread

in the fine tradition of people that yelp are scumbags

I have such guilt using groupons. I end up overtipping anyway.

Someone in the restaurant industry in Chicago compared Groupon to a cash advance on a credit card, and that analogy makes some sense. If your business runs a Groupon, you get a big payout all at once. It just means that for the next six months, you may be giving out completely complimentary services daily.

http://i.imgur.com/4Re3j.png

I like to torment myself by reading the groupon posts for services like laser hair removal and colonics.

"Can I use this groupon (laser hair removal) to remove a tattoo?"

mmmm AMOEBA groupon

Ooh

"Groupon halves revenue forecast, COO hastily exits."

citation needed

Groupon Operating Chief Leaves as Company Restates Revenue
September 23, 2011, 7:54 PM EDT
By Douglas MacMillan

Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Groupon Inc., the largest daily- deal site, announced the departure of its second chief operating officer in six months and restated revenue figures, cutting sales to a fraction of their previous levels.

Margo Georgiadis, head of operations, is leaving to rejoin her former employer, Google Inc., the Chicago-based company said today in a filing. In restating sales, Groupon cited “an error in its presentation of revenue.”

Groupon has lost executives and had to delay its initial public offering amid a volatile stock market. Brad Williams, the former head of communications, and Rob Solomon, Georgiadis’s predecessor as operating chief, left the company earlier this year. It’s also drawn flak for the way it accounted for income, which critics said was masking its true costs.

The company restated 2010 sales to $312.9 million, down from a previous level of $713.4 million. In its earlier accounting, Groupon counted the total amount of its daily-deal sales as revenue, including fees paid to merchants. The company makes money by selling discounts -- known as Groupons -- from businesses such as restaurants and nail salons. It then splits the revenue with the businesses.

“The company restated its reporting of revenues from Groupons to be net of the amounts related to merchant fees,” Groupon said in the filing. “Historically, the company has reported the gross amounts billed to its subscribers as revenue.”

First Half

Revenue in the first half of 2011 is now $688.1 million, compared with an earlier figure of $1.52 billion.

The company also said JPMorgan Chase & Co. is no longer a lead underwriter on its planned $750 million IPO. Groupon made the change after people with knowledge of the matter said online-coupon competitor LivingSocial hired the bank to raise more than $200 million in a round of private funding.

Wells Fargo & Co. joined the list of underwriters on Groupon’s offering, the filing showed.

Georgiadis will become Google’s president for the Americas region. Before going to Groupon in April, she was Google’s vice president of global sales. Her Groupon contract gave her a $500,000 salary and 300,000 fully vested stock options. Based on the $25 billion valuation Groupon was said to have been contemplating in March, those options would be worth $25.2 million dollars in an IPO.

‘Hard Decision’

“Groupon is a great company and I feel privileged to have worked there even for a short time,” she said today in a statement published by Groupon. “It was a hard decision to leave as the company is on a terrific path. I have complete confidence in the team’s ability to realize its mission.”

The executive will have an expanded role in her new position at Google, said Nikesh Arora, senior vice president and chief business officer of Mountain View, California-based Google.

“I called a great colleague from the past and asked her if she’d like to come back,” Arora said. “I could not ask for a better person to come back and work with us.”

Her earlier experience included a stint as chief marketing officer at Discover Financial Services.

steve shasta said it

xp dammit steve

Groupon is the Ponzi scheme that Perry should be bitching about.

Sure Drudge will connect it to other dubious Chicago finances soon enough.

I still have my TWO amoeba groupons

srsly, fuck these assholes who write copy for groupon

lol @ theater nerds not getting basic math

Groupon Shares Spike 40% at Open 3 minutes ago

smh

tbf there was a groupon coupon for groupon shares

The supply of dumb money and money that thinks it can find dumber money never abates.

lol iatee

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/fashion/many-consumers-find-it-hard-to-step-away-from-daily-deal-sites.html

has there ever been another billion dollar business that was 100% dependent on millions of people setting themselves up to be mad or disappointed?

facebook, zynga, (is fender a $1bn company?), sony lately.

has there ever been another billion dollar business that was 100% dependent on millions of people setting themselves up to be mad or disappointed?

― iatee, Saturday, March 10, 2012 3:13 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how do you mean? i've used them before & been happy w/ it ...

or do you mean the restaurants?

both sides seem to get burned pretty regularly

most of the examples in that article are idiots buying shit they didn't actually want. like buying ... anything, its buyer beware.

I had an interview with groupon last week to write this sort of stuff. I would hate them too but need the work, which it looks like I haven't got. So, yeah, fuck them.

the companies often get fucked w/ Groupon.

Groupon usually tries to keep 100% of the revenues from the groupon, but will occasionally be so kind as to split it 50/50. Their logic is "the customer almost always spends a larger amount than the value of the Groupon". which isn't always true.

Groupon copywriter loathes his job:

"Features
7"x11" softcover photobook
20 pages hold up to 150 failed self-taken profile pictures
Photos uploaded directly from Facebook albums
Arranged in a theme of your choosing
Crop and move photos within online photobook template"

http://www.groupon.com/deals/gg-ca-rexall-custom-photobook

Also contains sentence "photos you upload directly from Facebook albums or surveillance drones."

hah, once you notice that stuff like "Each album boasts a customer-chosen theme and holds photos that can be cropped and moved around in the most eye-pleasing arrangement" really starts to sound just as harsh

Celebrate the Man Who Gave Birth to You

He felt you grow and kick inside of him for nine months—
thank him with deals on Father's Day gifts.

does Groupon know something about my father that I don't

Yes.

h8 when Groupon writers try to be "funny"

I always think of this guy when I read the "funny" groupon copy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0qLxIzEndA

hahahaha

https://livingsocial.com/events/cities/1171-georgetown-foggy-bottom/683996-djing-with-biz-markie-presented-by-stanton

I was waiting for it, and it delivered in the last sentence

u_u

umair haque
‏@umairh
Hey, what is that "1,2,3,4" song that came out a few years back? Was that Ting Tings?

So dip your brush or tune your ear to what’s happening on F Street -- you won’t be disappointed.

amirite?

haha oops wrong "assholes" thread

groupon is fucking crazy

http://i.imgur.com/5cYYGme.png

lol @ thread title too

really hope they're stroking the mouth BEFORE the anus

what's a skin vagina

Glad to know Groupon still has skin vagina in the game.

if you include the sushi at the bottom that is a real solid date night

lol I almost made a very similar post

so what are you doing later?

getting kicked out of the sushi place when I ask if the vulcan love roll only has salmon skin

I think I've used this like twice in my life, but get so many emails. They seem to be really pushing these faintly scammy-looking lottery ticket broker websites recently

I dodged the bullet of becoming one of these titular assholes thanks to my famed lack of follow-through in the face of opportunity. Whew!