Wow. It seems that Groupon may have messed up in a BIG way.

I know this from participating in a variety of Twitter chats last night with the majority of my off-game attention going to the conversation that took place during the second annual #BZBowl, hosted by my partner in crime, Mike Brown.

Even today, the web is buzzing with serious backlash for the company's offensive approach to the three different 30-second spots that ran during the pre-game, then again during the first and second half of Super Bowl XLV.

Here's one of the clips that seems to be bunching up the panties of virtual stadiums full of people.

OMG! What poor taste! How dare Groupon poke fun of the poor people of Tibet! This is outrage!

Except, there's this one thing: who among you was actually thinking or talking about Tibet or the country's oppressed people prior to Groupon's gutsy advertisement?

I'm going to steal a line from my buddy, Elijah, and call shenanigans! Thinking about that some more, I surely thought that I must have been missing something. Since we don't have cable at home, I often find my news from folks on Twitter. But I hadn't seen anything on Tibet in the last week. My own curiosity led me to do a simple Google search on the keywords "Tibet Controversy" to find out more information on what's happening over there.

Thank goodness for Wikipedia, because the majority of the search results I found on the first two pages of Google were reactions to Groupon's Super Bowl ads in the form of articles, videos and blog posts. Interesting. We are talking about Tibet and its people, but only in the context of Groupon.

I'll take a chance with this post, already well aware of the potential flamewar that might consume the comments. Mike can tell you from observation that I rarely shy away from a good comment section debate.

Hold your breath. Ready?

I think Groupon wins.

In my opinion (and it's probably mine only), Groupon's controversial and offensive spots take home the Lombardi Trophy for the most effective Super Bowl spot during this year's game.

Before you pull the trigger, consider 5 reasons why I feel that way:

1. Attention is shor,t and memorable is memorable. There were lots of creative, edgy and funny ads on TV last night. This morning, some people are talking about Volkswagen's take The Force kid Vader. That was a great spot. Some people are talking about the Xoom Tablet spot in comparison to Apple's 1984 campaign. That ad was as deep and strategic as it gets and for trained marketers; it was a work of art. But more people are talking about how upset they are at Groupon's advertisements and the brand's blatant mockery of cause marketing. Let me ask you this: out of all the spots you saw, which ones were easiest for you to remember?
2. Hitting the broad target audience bullseye. I'm not surprised at the distaste for Groupon's ads on Twitter. We Twitter folk will dissect just about anything. Why? Humans who use Twitter well are always looking for a reason to talk with someone. But you know what else? Groupon wasn't trying to reach the digital natives last night, they were trying to reach everyone else. Chances are that if you are on online enough to be interested in Twitter, you've already heard of Groupon. You're online because you are a white-collar professional, you have a certain level of education and you've probably obtained a certain income level in your career. You are also a savvy web user who has the skills to find the things you need on your own. In fact, I'd be willing to bet you've already added your little slice of permission to their massive email asset. Game over. But for a large portion of last night's tuned-in viewers of Super Bowl XLV, the scenario above is not the case. For them, each of those ads was a chance to hear a new story and a new offer. In this case, Groupon had already rifled in on us web natives but was right in employing a shotgun approach to get the attention of everyone else.
3. Simplicity breeds conversion. Each of the Groupon spots were 30 seconds long - short and sweet. I remember that Cuba Gooding Jr. was in the first run of Save the Money - Whales. Cuba is a good actor, but the three things I remember most are much more meaningful for the brand. Firstly, I remember that I can save a large percentage on things I didn't even know I wanted. What's the actual percentage? I don't care. Groupon had me at "save." Secondly, I remember the logo and the brand name. The name "Groupon" by design is close enough to the words "group" and "coupon," both of which I already use in common speech. This makes it incredibly easy to adopt as a part of everyday speech. Thirdly, and most importantly, I remember that I need to sign up online. Even if I don't remember the exact URL, I know that if I type "Groupon" into the search box or URL bar, I'll get where I need to go. I imagine that the largest portion of the converted audience who will find Groupon and add their permission to the list will do so through Google.
4. Timing is everything. The audience Groupon was going after was not sitting at their laptops or mobiles during the game. They were not analyzing the ads or chatting on Twitter. They were at Super Bowl parties, bars and at home with family and friends. They were wearing team jerseys, eating greasy food and drinking beer. In essence, they were doing everything we would expect NFL fans to be doing during the big game. The timing of Groupon's ads in the pre-game, towards the middle of the game and then late in the 4th quarter helped to reinforce all the messages mentioned in my third bullet. Groupon seemed to carefully consider what their prime target audience would be doing during the hours of 6-11PM on a Sunday night and understood that getting online during the game was not going to be a priority for most viewers. Instead of trying to drive their audience to an action that they most likely weren't ready to take, Groupon spread the message out broadly in hopes of staying top-of-mind when the viewers were once again in front of the Interwebz.
5. Angry people watch again. Notice that video box up there? I embedded that to set the tone of this post. I watched it. Chances are because it's short and surrounded by controversy, you'll watch it too. The thing is, I'm only one blogger out of millions. I started writing this post at 9:03 AM EST. Over the course of exactly one hour, I watched the views on YouTube of the Save the Money -Tibet jump from 18,908 to 49,951 at 10:03 AM EST. What do you think the number of views of Groupon's Tibet Super Bowl ad will be when the clock strikes 10:03 AM EST tomorrow? My prediction? Millions...

So what do you think about Groupon's Super Bowl ads? Am I off-base?