Rhetorical Analysis Of Groupon Super Bowl Commercial

Groupon Super Bowl Commercial Ad Gone Bad When developing ads you have to come up with a strong persuasion technique that will appeal to your audience. To have a strong ad you have to use one to three of the three rhetorical devices. Those three rhetorical devices are logos, pathos, and ethos. (Phillips & Bostian, 2015)
In 2011 Groupon came out with a Super Bowl Commercial ad to persuade consumers to use Groupon. In this ad they used logos, pathos, and ethos. There was a lot of controversial issues that were brought up about this ad. This ad tried to use emotional graphics, a topic that was very controversial at the time, and a popular celebrity to appeal to consumers. However this ad took a turn quickly, and not in a good way. The ad starts out with visuals of Tibetan people and of their homes. It shows young girls dancing, little boys blowing Tibetan horn, and an middle aged man. The visual effects make you feel as if you were watching a serious ad that had affected many people in Tibet. The scene with the elderly man makes you think as if you were about to go into an even more emotional part of the ad. That was not

At the time of this, one of the world’s most revered cultures and religious histories had been threatened with death and extinction in Tibet by the Chinese government. (Kirkpatrick, 2011) This obviously was a serious issue, that may have not concerned the whole U.S. but it was affecting the Tibetan people. According to the director of the Groupon ad, Christopher Guest, they thought they were poking fun at themselves, but their joke clearly came off not as a joke. (Gross, 2011) There were a lot of critics that had strong opinions about this ad. One of the comments consisted of “ Dear Groupon, over a million Tibetans had been killed during chinese occupation. Your ad wasn't funny.” Just this ad alone shows that it was not the right time to be making this issue a joke.