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Subscribe to RSSBEIJING – It was a commercial that had many folks over here scratching their heads, once they got over the initial reaction of being offended.
Is China so difficult to understand that an American company seeking to break into the market here would get it so wrong?
Groupon’s 30-second Super Bowl ad featuring Timothy Hutton mocking the loss of Tibetan autonomy in the same breath as shilling for a cheap Tibetan meal managed to do the seemingly impossible: unite the Free Tibet crowd with China nationalists in their outrage at the commercial.
For English-language reaction, check out the comments on the YouTube site, where many people were angered by the trivialization of the Tibetan people's plight.
In Chinese over at Sina.com, many Internet users posted comments along the lines of:
“Groupon, do you really want to advance into China or what?”
Good question.
Seeking a China partner
For weeks, it’s been rumored that the Chicago-based deal-of-the-day website had teamed up with Tencent to launch a co-branded joint venture in China. Tencent is China’s biggest Internet company by market value and the provider of QQ, the mainland’s most popular free instant messaging service. (Tencent says it has 636.6 million active QQ user accounts.)
Neither company has commented on the reports, but China Daily quoted an anonymous source Monday saying the two are in a partnership and will be hiring 1,000 people within three months.
Well, maybe not so fast now.
For those of you unfamiliar with this narrative, the issue of Tibetan independence is a non-starter in China, where the government and most people believe Tibet has always been, and will always be, a part of the Chinese nation.
In the face of a growing chorus of outrage across two continents, Groupon posted an explainer for its Super Bowl ads:
“Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world.”
Whatever one thinks of the concept and whether the Chinese government has a sense of humour, there remains one sticking point.
Groupon has agreed to contribute matching donations to three featured charities, one of which is the Tibet Fund. It’s a non-governmental organization set up in the U.S. to work with Tibetan refugees and has the blessing of the Dalai Lama (a very unpopular figure in Chinese government circles), and its stance is clearly stated on its website: “The Tibet Fund will continue to focus its efforts on strengthening the exile community, for it is here that Tibetan culture and national identity are being sustained.”
This is how you do it, Groupon
In the meantime, the senior management over at Tencent must be wishing that they’d been consulted on the Super Bowl ad.
The Chinese Internet giant found itself in high praise over the weekend over its own TV commercial, which aired during the annual Spring Festival Gala last week.
The Gala is a variety show broadcast on CCTV that rings in the Chinese New Year and draws an estimated 700 million viewers – essentially the Chinese advertising bonanza equivalent of the Super Bowl.
The commercial, “Your Companion of 12 Years,” was posted online and went viral virtually overnight – not in China but among overseas Chinese communities, especially those in the U.S., for it tells an all too familiar story: a young Chinese man who leaves behind his family in order to live out his dream of studying and working in the U.S.
Sappy as it might appear to Americans, the Tencent ad has been hugely popular, in particular for drawing out the hankies among homesick Chinese unable to return home for the Chinese New Year holiday. (In the most recent available data, nearly 130,000 Chinese students went to the United States to study in 2009).
With additional research from Emily Ni.
Leave a Comment:
Who cares what the Chinese like or dislike? They should be more than happy they are making billions from the U.S. Perhaps it is time we shut off their imports. Then Americans can buy what WE produce and we can get this country back on track. As long as Americans foolishly continue to buy foreign over domestic instead of supporting what their country and they produce the collapse of this ONCE great country will continue unabated. Want jobs? Want a better economy? Want a brighter and more prosperous future? BUY AMERICAN!!! It is the ONLY way out of this mess. LEARN IT!!!
Ummm, do you have a clue on how much $$ America has "borrowed" from the Chinese and never repaid???
China has lent vast sums to the United States — roughly two-thirds of the central bank’s $1.95 trillion in foreign reserves are believed to be in American securities. But the Chinese government now finances a dwindling percentage of new American mortgages and government borrowing.
Ummm, do YOU have a clue on how much $$ China has STOLEN in American intellectual property and never repaid???
We could deduct what the U.S. spent fighting the Japanese to expell them from occupied China from what we owe and call it even.
If you tried to go for even one month without buying imports from China, you would have to not buy anything for one month. We have not been a manufacturing society for decades and even when we were, the economy was not a basket of roses. Almost everything you buy on a daily basis is either straight from China or has components made in China. Your opinion is not based in reality.
Nikki, if the US was not making payments on its loans from China, we would be in default and that would be a problem for both countries. The Chinese government is making a substantial amount of money from the interest on the long term loans the US pays on, which amount to about $800 billion.
The real issue here has to do with the depth of the trade imbalance and China's refusal to properly value the yen. With the undervalued yen, they undercut all competition, easily sell exports, attract investors and keep their population employed.
The US bears the burden of this inequity and also the responsibility for maintaining the global economy with the US dollar the standard for financial markets everywhere. The absence of willingness from China's leadership to realistically value the yen has created a global imbalance that has benefited its growth over the short term, and maintained a precarious economic stability but will inevitably be its undoing if not corrected (recall the recent riots in China when Americans stopped buying and factories in China started to close. They blamed the government, not the US).
We are all members of a global community. If either the US or China fails economically, they are both going down and taking the rest of the global population with them. These "us" and "them", good guys and bad guys scenarios are for grade-schoolers, not adults.
The problem is more complex than that. There is a reason why so many American companies use foreign labor to manufacture their products. It's vastly cheaper for them to hire foreign workers because they will work for astoundingly low wages that would be unlivable for any American.
In many cases, it's simply not POSSIBLE to buy American any more. Go to a toy store and try to find one that was made in the USA. It's nearly impossible.
As long as company A is getting their product manufactured cheaply in China, company B has little choice but to do the same. Most American consumers are simply not going to pay higher prices for the same product just to "buy American". The ONLY solution is to pass legislation that, somehow, increases the cost of hiring foreign workers until this is no longer an attractive option for companies.
Good luck getting such legislation through congress at the moment, though, because big business basically owns our legislative branch. (And this got substantially worse with the Citizen's United decision.)
I'd love to know where those 1,000 jobs will be located...Oh, let me guess....China...
If you have ever purchased a knock-off because it was cheaper than the real thing or bought anything in a $ store you have contributed to the inequality of our trade with China. China is the largest holder of our foriegn debt. I'm surprised Hu JinTao didn't outright laugh in Obama's face when he asked them to increase the value of their currency. Why should they do anything we suggest? They own our economy. That's also a primary reason that our government won't increase trade tarriffs for goods coming from overseas. And guess what, WE buy it. All big manufacturers will continue to support this because labor costs so much less in Asia from India to China.
Regardless of the argument over China, who in fact does not own us, we could pay the debt balance in full at any time. Think about it, since we control our currency, and the Chinese know that fact, two can play the currency manipulation game.
That said, I was disappointed in Timothy Hutton, as the ad was stupid, I shook my head wondering what the hell he and the idiots who wrote the ad were thinking, but this ad stunk.
This is a no brainer. Stop, think! IT IS A SUPER BOWL AD! End of story. End of discussion. NO ONE can MAKE you be offended. One CHOOSES to be offended. MOVE ON! There are bigger, badder things happening in the world to worry over a 30 second super bowl ad.
Oh, gee thanks, JP-1897883! And here I thought our obligation to the WTO and countervailing duties were the primary reasons it was pointless to "raise trade tarriffs." Thank you for enlightening me. I now see the real reason that we lower our barriers to trade is because "China owns our economy." Silly me.
Well you complain about our trade deficit with China, but ask Japan, S. Korea and Germany they all have surpluses with China. ASK THEM!
China don't want our low end manufacturing because THEY MAKE IT THEMSELVES, they want high end technologies. Yet we refuse to trade them out of fear, our cold war mentality is losing us that opportunity. That fear that Commies getting 'dual use technologies' doesn't serve us as Japan, SoKo and Germany happily rakes the dough while we reap the worst of both worlds.
Why else do you think Boeing and Airbus are practically grooming a 3rd rival, AVIC? B/c they know they don't the other will or China will get it done legally/illegally and they will lose profit for some that will HAPPEN eventually...
The comment about the US grinding to a halt without imports from China is not entirely true. America still is the largest manufacturing country in the world. It currently outproduces China by up to 40%.
Of course, we all know America's in decline, for whatever reasons, internal or external. And that gap is closing. Fast. But I think Americans should be philosophical and learn to to have an abundance mentality. When Old Europe's influence waned, they found their place in the world. Lol. So will America. Nothing lasts forever, good or bad. And who knows, 50 years from now, the Chinese will be lamenting their relative decline and they'll be some
I agree in principle. The problem is, we don't make anything any more!! There are no more clothing factories, no more steel factories, nothing!! In order to answer Wall Street and make even more profits, business has shipped the "making" of "stuff" overseas to where there are no unions and cheap labor, so business can make even more profit, none of which goes to the workers or the US economy, but in the pockets of the CEO's. Business has learned how to use the concepts of capitalism against us.
If we don't manufacture things anymore, why did the Government just come out with a figure that we manufacture 40% more than China? Doesn't sound logical.
A Veteran,
We no longer manufacture consumer goods. What we make here is medical, industral, and aerospace equipment, things that require quality not quantity.
my family only buys American, and if they dont like what aired here in American then turn your tv's off
Your way or the highway, eh?
Check your shoes.
Never-mind. I'm not even going to bother.
Please tell us what car is an American car?
Did you know the Toyota Sequoia is more American than a Jeep Patriot?! LOL. Its true! The Toyota uses over 80% American sourced parts. The Patriot? About 66%.
The BMW X5 is more American than a Pontiac G8. The G8 is from Australia. The X5 is made in South Carolina. And, since Pontiac is no-more...Chevy is thinking of rebranding the G8 into a Chevy. Its still made in Australia.
Just because a company is headquartered in the US makes them an 'American' car company only in title. I'd say if a car is built from parts made in the US and Manufactured using American Labor in an American factory - they are more 'American' than another car using 'foreign' parts in a foreign factory - although headquartered here.
You have to look at more than just the name of the car to be able to see if it's an American car.
Hell, the most 'American' of all the vehicles you can think of, the Ford F-150, is less 'American' than a Camry or an Accord.
"...The F-150 typically tops vehicle sales charts in the U.S. year in and year out. But its two competitors for that No. 1 sales spot, the Toyota Camry and the Honda (HMC) Accord, contained the most domestic content of any popular vehicles sold in the U.S..."
I'd say - if a car is made with American parts by American workers in American factories...they are American cars. Just because GM, Ford or Chrysler slap their name on the vehicle doesn't make them an 'American' car.
Would those be the Zenith TVs that were the last produced in the US, before Asia's illegal dumping practice teamed up with American myopia (and the US Supreme Court) to destroy the American TV industry? We had the chance to save our TV industry, but all we could see was the short-term gain of saving a few bucks by buying imports. The same nearly happened to our auto industry. Speaking of which, Josh, if you'll pull your microscope back and look at the bigger picture, which of the cars you identify puts the largest number of dollars into the American economy? We can screw together foreign-made subassemblies and throw in American-made carpets all day long, but when the car is sold, why aren't we focusing on where the profits go? To me, "buy American" means give the markup to an American company. No Toyotas for me, thanks, until their overall corporate revenues stay in the USA.
This guy thinks he has a T.V. that 100% made in America..........
Hope your not the fool who thinks just because its an American brand like Ford means its made in Mexico..er...US. Besides haven't you heard of gray manufacturing? The label maybe made in the US but the rest is made in China and its still counts as MADE IN USA.
I thought it was funny. It got the attention the company wanted. China considers Tibet part of China, so let them have it. We sure took over plenty of land here in America and look what happened when some states tried to pull out of the Union. The ad was for Americans.
Funny that China is slowly destroying the Thibet culture and people? Yeah, thats a real laugher!!
That's why so much of the world hates the U.S. Treating a nation's question of autonomy as a selling tactic is really an insult and trivializes people, much like the European colonists trivialized the native Americans. I am definitely not going to be supporting Groupon.
I agree. I was dumbfounded by how they thought that was a clever commercial. I wonder if people would be so flippant if he was sitting in a soul food restaurant mocking the New Orleans flood.. but getting a "cheap meal". Never heard of Groupon before, but Hutton isn't going to get much respect from me for participating either.. I hope any real charity he might have aligned himself with cuts him loose pretty quick or he'll end up damaging more than helping them.
The Chineses and the Tibetans need to lighten up.
The problem is that America as a whole is dumb and greedy. We love mediocrity with our short attention spans. We are willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the almighty buck. It's great that you want to buy American, but not enough of a percentage of people care.
I love Christopher Guest, but think his commercials (He made all 3 Groupons) are too smart for their own good.
Talking about a situation that includes rape, torture incarceration and execution of innocent peasants, and the question of a nationalist political genocide... as a joke...
Well, its not funny. It is crass. It is akin to making a commercial poking fun at Hitler's death camps with a song and dance number ... you know, "maggots eating your gangrenous feet -$900.00, sister burning in the crematorium -$30,000.00, a crust of moldy bread given through the fence $000 priceless... mastercard."
How stupid can you be?
Regardless of whether some dumbass on here wants to get mad about what offends someone who is not American, this is a terrible ad strategy. Additionally, this ad offends Americans, not bleeding hearts, just normal people who also think it is disgusting to make a joke out of people (any people) getting raped, tortured and killed en masse.
This is not like a foreign concept is it? Having the taste not to trivialize really horrible humanitarian issues?
If you answered YES to that, you are an ugly American, the kind that does not know what is going on outside their TV and does not care... ignorant.
I agree. I thought the commercial easily ranked as the worst in the Superbowl. The message was: "The Tibetans are a proud people with great problems. But who the heck cares about that? Not you the viewer, certainly. We know you don't care squat about anyone but yourself and how you can save money. Well, we'll help you do that, and abuse a persecuted minority at the same time. Aren't we great!"
So no, I don't think it insulted the Tibetans OR the Chinese as much as it insulted the American viewers. It was the only ad that made me actively resolve never to buy the product.
Mo-mo's comment is spot on. This ad was offensive and wholly inappropriate. How was this idea allowed past Groupon's senior managment? I find it hard to believe that through the development of this idea, no one stopped for a minute to ask, "Is this the right message that we want to send to our customers?" or "Is this the right tone for a major audience?".
Frankly, for a company to throw its support behind such an offensive message makes me question my patronage to their business. I'm an avid Groupon user, but after such a display of ignorance last night I won't be supporting Groupon in the future. Take note my fellow Americans, ignorance is not bliss--it's just bad business and close minded. I sincerely hope Groupon suffers consequences for their actions in the future.
FYI--Google is currently developing a similar product platform after Groupon refused their offer in December.
I agree that the commercial was offensive and not funny. I'm surprised Timothy Hutton didn't think about this script before he agreed to do it. I thought he was smarter than that.
"poking fun at Hitler's death camps with a song and dance number "?
Sounds a bit like Mel Brooks "The Producers" - you know, "Springtime for Hitler, and Germany!" Yes, it is possible to poke fun at Nazis without insulting the victims in the least, and Mel Brooks did it very well.
This ad wasn't poking fun at the Tibetans, it was poking fun at the pompous twits that pretend to be "for a cause" but who are really just in it for themselves.
Yeah, that was kind of a dick move I think.
If it really was meant to poke fun at celebrities pretending to be charitable, they could have made that more clear.
They have every right to feel insulted. That was completely un-called for.
The brutal Chinese dictators deserve to be insulted, evil has no honor.
But I fail to see how it was the least bit insulting towards the Tibetans, they were not made fun of, it was posturing "cause celebrities" that were lampooned. You know, those wealthy twits that are really more concerned with themselves than for the causes they pretend to promote.
So what? I am Tibetan. The whole world is full of hypocrisy anyway. The whole world watches as my beloved homeland and my people are systematically killed falsely imprisoned, tortured, etc. My country has been looted and our land exploited beyond belief. Our most holiest city now has over a thousand brothels. Military personnel, police and undercover spies in plain clothes are everywhere, and so are cameras mountain on the top of temples. Now the Chinese are raping our resources like crazy, diverted water, mining is going on everywhere and they are moving in more and more Chinese everyday. We are now a minority in many parts of our own country. They are attempting to destroy our culture on a slow, deliberate basis. I wish the Americans would have helped from the beginning but they did little. They've gone from declaring Tibet an occupied country in various resolutions in the US congress to nowadays saying that Tibet is an inseparable part of China. I want people to know the truth. We are not Chinese, not a part of China, never have been and never will be. We are Tibetans. When the Chinese invaded I never had even seen a Chinese person in my life. My parents and grandparents never thought of themselves as under Chinese rule, ever! I have lost many members of my family since the invasion, my Father died in a Chinese prison, my Mother was tortured with a cattle prod and died shortly after her release. She spent 6 years in prison because she spoke up for Tibet and our true history, she refused to repeat the Chinese version of our sacred homeland. This is the truth. The Ad means nothing. People only care about things when it's happening to them, othewise it's all a big joke, it's over there somewhere, no reason to care, it's not happening here.
who cares. this is a non-story. People should stop being so dang sensitive. It's a JOKE people, get over it and get over yourselves. Man, when did this world become so uptight. This PC movement is going too far. At first I thought, what a terrible time for a Free Tibet commercial, then I saw it was for Groupon and thought it was great. Very well played!
For the people of Tibet my heart goes out to them for what is happening to their people and land, all brought to you by the Chinese GOVERNMENT!
Yeah, all you do-gooders just love your BFF Uncle China!
“CHINESE PIANIST PLAYS ANTI-AMERICAN TUNE AT WHITE HOUSE”
“A Chinese pianist struck a sour note at a White House state dinner with a rendition of a well-known anti-American anthem.”
I say F**KEM!
Who gives a Damn
The Tencent/QQ commercial was awesome. I'm American, but am living abroad in a country with a huge Chinese population and the culture of going back to one's hometown for Chinese New Year is so strong, and it's a massive holiday, the biggest of the Chinese calendar. After my years among these people as their friend, this commercial really delivered the emotional goods. I can also say that I have met numerous locals here (Chinese Malaysians) whose greatest dream is to visit the United States, or work or study there. Reading some of the comments on this story makes me wonder why they'd ever be so eager.
Americans would do well to get over their prideful, jingoistic, dimwitted views of the East. Sixty percent of the world's population live in Asia, and China alone has four times the population of the U.S. Why actively seek enmity and discord with these people? With over 5,000 years of history and culture, China could teach us a lot, and we could do the same in return. I know firsthand that the chasm between Eastern and Western cultures and thinking is vast, but even if we don't embrace that which is different, there's no harm in respecting it and valuing it.
Cannot think of any good reason to make light of real people suffering in order to make a buck. "Crass" and "in poor taste'" were my reactions.
I can see why the Chinese dictators would be furious, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the "Free Tibet" people should be upset. It didn't make fun of Tibetans, it made fun of pompous "causes" that are really more concerned about themselves than the issues they pretend to be for.
You mean you don't see why the "people more concerned about themselves than the issues they pretend to be for" are upset about the ad making fun of pompous "causes" that are really more concerned about themselves than the issues they pretend to be for?
There's an old Chinese saying that roughly goes "the guilty are paranoid", it applies perfectly here.
It would be nice to think that these American Businesses would try to support their own country for a change, instead of huckstering to China and Tibet, etc. Let your own starve is that it? While all our natural resources are sold out to foreigners, and they raise the American's utility rates to raise the profits for the foreign investors! Tell your congressmen to create statewide plebiscites to vote on making all utilities in the state into non-profit corporations! Let the people decide whether we will continue to make foreigners rich off of our own national resources!
I completely agree with Nikki67 its a 30 second super bowl ad it doesnt matter at all if one is offended or not because taking offense is more or less an opinion. An opinion is just someone's viewpoint and does not need to start a huge controversy about the politics and the economy. It seems like every time MSNBC publishes a new article someone always has to bring up politics. Not every thing is about politics. Now I hope that these people realize it is just a 3o second super bowl commercial and doesn't need to be taken seriously.