The Challenge
The world was opening up again following lockdown.
People were hungrier than ever to soak up all the experiences they’d been missing out on. Groupon was uniquely positioned to help marry customers demand for affordable experiences and services with merchant’s desire to help their businesses recover.
But there was a problem: Groupon’s brand was stale. Everything from the colors to the website to the app experience hadn’t changed in years.
We needed to shift the perception of the brand. No longer would Groupon be thought of as a place to find deals and discounts, but rather a portal through which you could get inspired to live life to the fullest, discover experiences, and save a ‘lil dough while doing it.
To reintroduce ourselves to the world, we needed a campaign bursting with vibrant color and enthusiasm.
A New ‘Pon Rising
I was a leader in developing Copy and Content guidelines and concepts for our global brand relaunch.
I led the copy team in establishing voice, tone, and humor guidelines for all marketing channels. I helped refresh our creative strategy and content-production guidelines for Social. As Creative Lead, I also served as a liaison for for our in-house agency, connecting the work of our Copy, Production, and Design teams with the strategy of leaders our Brand, Social, Merchandising, Data/Research, DEI, and FCB, our agency of record.
Together, we delivered a refreshed brand and an omni-channel marketing campaign that introduced a new Groupon to a new world…
Rediscovering Our Voice
Somewhere along the line, Groupon lost its quirkiness.
The company used to have a bold and absurdist tone, but its voice had become bland and forgettable. I helped lead our copywriting team in refreshing Groupon’s voice, and helping Groupon rediscover its weirder side.
We took a look at the evolution of Groupon's humor, from the early days (when The New York Times was writing articles about our editorial department) to present (when lots of people had forgotten Groupon even existed) to see what worked in the past and what wouldn’t in the future.
Making Groupon Weird Again
The voice and tone principles of Groupon humor served as a playbook.
They were used to train teams and evaluate campaigns in international markets.
And they helped guide our external agency partners in re-embracing Groupon’s weirder side while crafting the ad for our new campaign: "Grab Life by the Groupon"
Sharing Moments of “Wow”
What do we actually remember about an unforgettable experience?
It’s not the entire adventure, down to the finest detail. It’s a handful of specific moments and the strong emotions they stirred up.
It’s that moment.
That moment of “ahhh...” when the massage therapist untangles that pesky knot and weeks of stress at last dissolves. That moment of “oh. my. god.” when a steaming pizza finally arrives at your table. That moment of *speechlessness* when you take in the first view on the first morning of your tropical island getaway.
I worked with Design and Production leads to tell Groupon’s new brand story across Social using content that captures those that make an experience truly unforgettable.
Fresh, Artisanal Groupontent™
I helped lead development of content concept templates that could be consistently ownable, authentic, and unique to Groupon.
We aimed to build community and grow our bank of User Generated Content (UGC) by repurposing this content and tagging merchants and users.
All of these concepts could be built with raw materials—tweets, reviews, photos/videos, and more from customers and merchants—that already existed on Groupon’s channels.
New Brand, New Look
Our in-house creative team codified global content guidelines—from video/photography style to a new brand color palette—to maintain a consistent brand as production was scaled across all channels internationally.
We eliminated stock imagery on Social. Photography would exude authentic emotion and revel in life’s messy beauty. It would allow the viewer at a glance to see and feel themselves as a part of that moment by striking a balance between aspirational and attainable, magical and natural, spontaneous and well-timed.
We rehauled our internal ways of working to build out a pipeline for User Generated Content sourced from actual Groupon merchants and customers.
Get the Gist?
The missing piece for our brand relaunch—The Gist: a shiny new marketing blog to inspire people to discover new things to try on Groupon.
From profiles on our favorite small business owners, to first-person accounts of weird Groupon experiences, to gift guides, to listicles, to fun brand articles—my copywriting team and I published 600+ articles, delivered 100k monthly page views, 1 million monthly SEO impressions, and a monthly SEM value of~98k.
Join the Party
No brand relaunch would be complete without an RSVP to the party.
My writing team worked with our designers to produce an eye-popping email that would welcome new and lapsed customers to the new Groupon: enthusiastic and energetic, with calls to adventure packed into every module.
