Groupon

Mar 05 2013

Best Exit Ever?

Memo from Dave: If you’re focusing on the Groupon CEO’s exit letter, you’re missing the point.

It’s been shared so many times that we’re not going to do it here.

Andrew Mason was fired from his post as CEO at Groupon, and the Internet was soon ablaze with commentary about how Mason’s parting shot was the “best exit letter ever.” (Chicago Tribune, Phil Rosenthal, Sunday, March 3. Article still behind a paywall, so here’s a link to the front of the site.)

He admitted that he was fired.

He used the word “Love.”

He was forthright and not bitter.

You’re missing the point. And, to explain the photo of Chuck D, “don’t believe the hype.”

Allow me to pick on Tribune’s Rosenthal, since his paean to Mason was entitled “This is the way to exit the stage right.” Rosenthal interviews Chicago workforce staple John Challenger – he is the only workplace expert interviewed – and proceeds to say that Mason “nailed the landing.”

I’m left with the impression that this was a combination of Johnny Carson’s farewell show with Bette Midler, combined with Ronald Reagan’s last address to America, with a dash of one of those full-page ads that retiring sports figures take out in newspapers to thank all their fans.

Let’s talk about leadership

The “best exit ever” is not about knowing how to say you were fired – the best exit ever is knowing when to (borrowing from Mason’s letter, which, I guess, will be made into a Broadway Show) “get out of the way.”

We’ve been critical on these pages of Groupon – and, dare we say we told you so…check out this article.

A true leader – which, for all of Mason’s successes as a business builder, I’ll go out on a limb and say watching your company IPO and then have 75% of its shareholder value disintegrate does not a leader make – doesn’t worry about how graceful his or her exit looks.

A true leader gets the right people in place and gets the heck out of the way.

“Nailed the landing.” And missed everything else.

The peanut gallery should focus not on what was said and when it was said – it should focus on the rest of the business, and fixing the business model. Or, we too, should get out of the way.

Feb 08 2011

‘How Much Did That Cost?’

A cautionary tale.

Ken Dodd, Worthing Theatres, Creative Commons photo

The year? 1998. Or 1999. We’ve tried to put it out of our memory. But it actually happened. A Marketing Case Study. Dave from Area 224 lived it.

The general idea went as follows: at the company meeting, where all of the “key managers” and “important executives” will be gathered, we need something big. No, HUGE. Rally the troops, get everyone on the same page. Get everyone psyched. We need a spectacle to kick it all off.

Take the most creative guy at the company, the guy who will eventually work in Hollywood and produce TV shows, and turn him loose. Let his humor shine – give him control over the project. (For the purposes of this story, let’s call him “Mr. Hollywood.”)

Throw in a former broadcaster (“Dave”), put him in a white dinner jacket, and let him act as a game show host.

Then…

Well, then let the project come off the rails. Horribly. Off. The. Rails.

The creative team – Dave and Mr. Hollywood – comes up with Idea A; but Idea A, which starts as a simple game show, ends up with a game you’ve all heard of and probably played.

Then, the now-expanded creative team says: “What we really need people to know is that the game has changed and we all need to be ready for the change.” (Believe it: in the late 90s, this company did indeed have the forethought to say “game changer.”)

The result gave us a storyboard that looked like this:

Open with a game board. Bring out real, live people dressed as game pieces. Bring out a female host, play the game for a few minutes. Then, bring out Dave, in a white dinner jacket for effect. Let him change the game by moving pieces around. Confuse everyone. Play the game for another few minutes. Leave the stage. Cue the CEO, who will give his “State of the Company” speech.

The CEO took the stage to stunned silence. He dove into his speech with no mention of what just happened.

Afterwards, he called the person in charge of planning the meeting and asked one question:

“How Much Did That Cost?”

Why do we share this tale? Well, in addition to being cathartic, this was one of the first things that came to mind here at Area 224 after analyzing the Groupon brand kerfuffle. (After the Burger King Whopper Virgins piece, which we talked about yesterday.)

See, these things can actually happen. In the case above, it happened at a company whose revenues were somewhere in Groupon’s ballpark. A team thinks they’re executing on the company’s vision of what a management meeting kickoff is supposed to look like. A CEO, however, had a completely different vision for the meeting: what investment are we making in our company’s success?

The creatives – Dave and Mr. Hollywood – and the whole team of game players did their best to execute on what was a bad idea from the get-go.

Introducing the concept of Game Change(r) in front of a group of people that had no idea what we were talking about. Sorta like introducing a snarky web company to a bunch of football watchers, and throwing in a confusing philanthropic message at the same time.

The white dinner jacket? Seemed really out of place. But it was the least of our problems after we dug out from that meeting.

The cost? Much more expensive than the actual price paid – a lesson Groupon is no doubt learning today.

Feb 07 2011

To: Groupon – Re: How to Be Culturally Sensitive, Ironic, Witty – and not be Jerks

Whopper Virgin Campaign, (c) Burger King
After the Super Sunday Epic Brand Fail, Groupon needs to borrow from Burger King.

So you’ve got a product or service, you’re looking to advertise, you want to be edgy – and you want to show that you’re worldly, too?

We’ve mentioned it before on these here pages – but we think it’s worth another look. Especially if you’re a company that has just blown $3 Million on an ad campaign that managed to anger the populace – a good chunk of which didn’t even know you existed the day before.

Borrow from Burger King, whose 2009 Whopper Virgins piece was nothing short of awesome.

Here’s a link: Burger King Whopper Virgins.

If you don’t have time to watch it (and we recommend you make time), here’s all you need to know: Burger King managed to go into some far-flung places, get people to try a Whopper sandwich, and not make it look like they were insensitive interlopers.