Real Time Digital: Episode 6
In this Real Time Digital episode, Emily and I discuss what’s hot about the Double Rainbow that has gained a lot of attention and buzz on YouTube. We also speak with Julie Mossler, Groupon’s head of PR about deals you can get with Groupon.
Announcer: You are now logged in to Real Time Digital, presented by TheJARGroup.com, online marketing with measurable results. Welcome two of The Jar Group’s savviest Internet marketers, Emily Liedblad and Lauren Garcia. Listen as these digital divas analyze hot trends and chat with the in‑crowd of the digital world. Real Time Digital starts in real time, real time right now.
Lauren Garcia: Hello, and welcome to Real Time Digital, hosted by The JAR Group. We are your digital divas. I’m Lauren.
Emily Liedblad: I’m Emily. Welcome to the show. We have a really great show planned out for you guys today. We will be interviewing Julie Mossler from Groupon. She’s the head of PR and social media there. I’m sure everybody here has bought a Groupon…or ten…
Lauren: Yes.
Emily: … in their lifetimes, so…
Lauren: We’ll have her on the show later.
Emily: Yes. So we’ll be featuring her a little bit later on. But before, of course, I know you all heavily anticipate our what’s hot…
Lauren: What’s hot?
Emily: And what’s not segment. I think we have a pretty hot day today. There’s not very many not hots.
Lauren: Kind of like the weather here in New York.
Emily: Yeah, exactly.
Lauren: It’s been pretty hot every day.
Emily: Yeah, it’s scorching here in New York, but we’re going to keep it cool, or at least try to. The first thing, this has been a huge week for viral videos.
Lauren: Huge.
Emily: Yeah. Things have been exploding all over. One of them… You’ve probably seen the double rainbow YouTube video.
Lauren: Double Rainbow. Oh, yeah.
Emily: You want to tell us about that, what it… It’s hilarious. It’s this hippie dude who probably lives somewhere in the Midwest.
Lauren: I think it’s in a national park somewhere.
Emily: Yeah, so he’s in some type of national park.
Lauren: Yosemite.
Emily: OK, so he’s in Yosemite, and he starts his camera, and once his camera’s rolling he pans over to the mountain range and sees this huge, full, complete half arch double rainbow.
Double Rainbow Guy: Whoa, that’s a full rainbow. All the way. Double Rainbow. Oh, my God, it’s a double rainbow! No way. Whoa!
Lauren: So funny.
Emily: It’s ridiculous.
Lauren: Just go on YouTube and search “Double rainbow” if you haven’t already. At this point, there’re so many spin‑offs and remixes. Somebody autotuned it. It’s hilarious.
Emily: Yeah, you have to check it out. What’s funny about this is this guy, this hilarious guy who literally sobs at the sight of this rainbow has had this video loaded on YouTube since January. Through some random chain of events, Jimmy Kimmel picked it up and ReTweeted it, and since then is it just off the charts viral. It is so funny.
Lauren: Yeah, like six months after he posts it. He found it and Tweeted about it, and yes, since then it’s just blown up.
Emily: Yeah. I can just imagine all the viral material out there, just waiting to be discovered. There’s just so much content.
Lauren: So many gems.
Yeah. It’s interesting, though. The effect that a celebrity can have on spreading the word about things that they might find funny. If just some random person Tweeted about that, it probably wouldn’t have blown up as quickly or easily as it has.
Emily: As it did.
Lauren: If Jimmy hadn’t tweeted it.
Emily: Those huge influencers are key. The people with thousands of followers. It’s too funny.
Lauren: So funny.
Emily: And so now, the guy, the hippie dude considers Jimmy his homeboy.
Lauren: He’s like, “My buddy Jimmy,” on the interview. I think it was CBS.
Emily: And yeah. He’s been getting all these interviews, so you never know who’s going to pick up your content. You could be buds with a celebrity next week if you have something really good on there.
Lauren: And tweet us at @TheJarGroup if you have any cool viral videos, or cool videos that you think should go viral.
Emily: So next, they’re making… You guys have probably all heard of this by now. At first, I thought it was a joke, but apparently Facebook is coming out… Facebook isn’t making the movie, but there’s a movie coming out about Facebook, following Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to fame and his development of the social network platform, Facebook. It’s really interesting. It’s about… All I’d ever heard about the founding of Facebook was that it was…
Lauren: Originally for college kids.
Emily: Yeah, it was made… It was developed in a college dorm room, and apparently there was a lot of internal…
Lauren: Yeah, look at the trailers. It looks like there’s a lot of drama and conflict…
Emily: Yeah, there’s a lot of conflict.
Lauren: … in the development.
Emily: I didn’t know it was such a huge deal on campus when it was first developed. So, that should be pretty interesting.
Lauren: And who knows how much truth is actually in the movie.
Emily: Yeah, but it actually looks kind of good. It looks like a pretty intense, heated movie. I guess it’s getting released right about the time that Facebook is to announce it has 500 million users.
Lauren: 500 million?
Emily: 500 million users.
Lauren: Wow.
Emily: It’s insane. So look out for that in the theaters, coming this fall, I believe.
Lauren: I wonder many people will see it? How it will do? Because when I first heard about it, I was like, “Really? A movie about Facebook?” But then I watched the trailer, and I was like, “That looks mildly interesting.”
Emily: Mark Zuckerberg’s played by Jessie Eisenberg, who is the guy in Adventureland and he’s been pretty big recently. So that should be interesting. The logo or the slogan is “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” So look out for that.
Lauren: That gives you kind of a taste.
What else is hot right now? The World Cut just ended.
Emily: Oh yeah, that’s right.
Lauren: Which is so sad for me, because I’m like…
Emily: We’ve been tracking the World Cup.
Lauren: It was a good month. It was a good month, but kind of going off of that, something that you guys may or may not have heard about is Paul the Octopus. Paul is a psychic Octopus who has… I think he was seven for seven in predicting the winners of World Cup games, including the finals. He picked Spain to win.
Emily: He picked it every single time. How is that possible? I literally thought it was a joke at first. It was just so unbelievable.
Lauren: Yeah, it’s crazy, and just to tie it into the digital world, which is what we’re here for obviously, he is getting his own iPhone app.
Emily: Does it help you make decisions or something?
Lauren: Yeah, I guess it helps you make decisions.
Emily: I think I’m going to put all major decisions into his legs.
Lauren: Tentacles.
Emily: Tentacles. I’m just going to use that application when I’m ready to make a hefty decision.
Lauren: I think you’re able to decide… Have Paul psychically decide if it would be better to have pizza or a salad for lunch. Those kinds of things.
Emily: I would trust him. I think I would trust him.
Lauren: He’s pretty good. He’s been pretty accurate, and I guess Spain is trying to get him in Spain now. I’m not sure where he is at the moment.
Emily: I think he’s in Germany. Yeah, that’s where he’s from. Right. Just so funny and so ironic.
They say they’re willing to top any bid that German zoos are willing to put out, because how a beloved… Just an idol in Spain, so Paul the Octopus got an iPhone app, and it’s potentially making moves to Spain. What else is hot? Oh yeah, back to our viral video clip, I don’t know if you guys have heard about the Old Spice man yet, but it’s a pretty clever…
Lauren: Hilarious.
Emily: …clever digital marketing campaign.
Lauren: Wait, where did he originate from? Because he was on TV first, right? He just had those commercials, you know, like “Zoom in. Zoom out. I’m riding a horse.”
Emily: Yeah, just really ridiculous.
Lauren: But now he has gone viral through YouTube videos, as well.
Emily: So apparently what happens… Somebody tweets something and he responds to your tweet with a YouTube video. I think the funniest one is where he proposes to someone on the proposee’s behalf, and it’s really funny. Apparently, she said yes, so everything worked out well for everybody there.
Lauren: Congratulations Jsbeals.
Emily: Yeah. I don’t know what the guy’s name is. They just call him Old Spice Guy, but he is sexy. He’s got some muscles going on. It’s true. It’s funny.
And he’s also been taking advantage of celebrities to get this really going viral. I know he’s been making videos towards Alyssa Milano and Kevin Rose, who founded Digg. Pretty hilarious. He knows how to get attention from people. Knows where to find an audience.
Lauren: So what else? Anything else hot this week?
Emily: I say we bring in Julie from Groupon. I’m really excited to see what she has to say. So, yeah. Let’s go to break, and then when we come back, we’ll be talking to Julie.
Lauren: Stay tuned!
Announcer: Real Time Digital will be back after this download from our sponsors. [commercial break]
Announcer: Welcome back to Real Time Digital, presented by TheJARGroup.com, online marketing with measurable results. Here are your digital divas, Emily and Lauren.
Lauren: Welcome back to Real Time Digital. We are your digital divas. I am Lauren.
Emily: And I’m Emily.
Lauren: And we are here today with Julie Mossler from Groupon. She is the head of PR there, and Julie, thanks so much for being on the show.
Julie Mossler: Of course. I’m excited.
Emily: So, just to get a little bit of background, you guys launched in November 2008, and most people, I’m sure, know what Groupon is by now. If not, sign up for your email. You guys offer a daily deal on the best stuff across a bunch of different cities in the US, Canada, and Europe. So, if you just want to give us maybe a little bit more background about how Groupon works, and just what it is.
Julie: Sure. We’re based on the whole idea of collective buying, so it’s getting a group together in order to get a great discount on a really quality local business. Groupon has featured everything from skydiving, to sensory deprivation tanks, to salons and spas. Pretty much anything you can think of that you’re ever wanted to try, you’ll probably find on our site at some point. So, it’s one deal that we offer each day. Every day at midnight, there’s a different deal that’s posted in your city. A minimum number of people have to opt in to get the discount, and so, say, the minimum number is 30. If we get 30 customers to agree to buy the deal, then we all get the discount and the deal is on. If we don’t reach 30, then the deal is cancelled and we try again the next day.
Lauren: So, what happens if, say, 25 people sign up? What happens… What do you say to those 25 people if the discount doesn’t actually go through? If you don’t get the minimum number?
Julie: We say… We will send them an email and say, “Thanks for being brave. Unfortunately, today’s deal didn’t go through, so try again tomorrow.” The good news is that more than 95 percent of our deals do tip, so you probably aren’t going to encounter that too often. But again, that’s the motivation to send the deal to your friends and rope in friends and family and let them know.
Lauren: Absolutely. Emily and I have done that before. We get the Groupon discount and we’re like, “Hey, do this with me!” We’re like, “Oh, let’s go get a massage!”
Emily: Except we haven’t gotten one for a sensory depravation tank. What is that? [laughs]
Julie: I know. It’s kind of that experience of floating in water, and being in the dark, and just relaxing, I think. I haven’t gotten to try that one yet, but that definitely caught my attention. I’m a fan of the ones that are a little bit crazier, the ones that I wouldn’t normally do. So things like foreign language classes; learning how to speak Japanese. There’s a restaurant in San Francisco where you actually dine completely in the dark, so that you focus more on the sensations and the tastes of the food.
Things like that. I’m thankful to Groupon for bringing that to my attention, because I would have never known about it otherwise.
Lauren: Absolutely. Not only that, but some of these things can get pretty expensive, so the fact that Groupon offers discounts on these really cool things that you would have never heard of and probably never done without it is awesome that you can provide people with those experiences.
Julie: Definitely. We’ve provided discounts on BOTOX or even laser hair removal. Those things, typically, you have to go and do it a few times, and you buy it in a package. That can get up to $300, $400. I know a lot of people probably… There’s the ongoing joke that I’d be beautiful if I could afford it. So, I think that we probably help people do that, too.
Emily: Awesome. So, how did Groupon get started? What was the first city, and what were the ideas behind it?
Julie: We actually launched, as you said, November 2008 in Chicago. It was founded by a guy named Andrew Mason, who is in his 20s. He actually started a site called “The Point,” and it was a site for collective action, but more on a community level. The idea was, “Let’s get a group of people together to really make a difference in the community, but you only have to commit to doing that if we get 100 people do to so.” I’ll contribute $50 to fix this school or this park, but I only have to pay the $50 if we really get enough people together to make a difference. And so, it was a way of feeling like your effort really counts, because there’s strength in numbers.
And then looking at ways to monetize the site, eventually it turned into social shopping, and they realized that a concept like Groupon could really be successful.
Emily: Oh, wow. So, how has Groupon grown up to because the most popular email distribution newsletter? I definitely think you guys have the most name recognition out of all the ones that I know. You just set…
Lauren: The standard…
Julie: That’s really good to hear, and we definitely see ourselves as the pioneers in this space, and we’ve been recognized that way by some pretty influential media people who are familiar with the whole concept of social commerce, which is something we pioneered. Just by the numbers, when we started, we were in Chicago. We released our first deal to about 400 people in our office building. And now, we’re in 150 cities. We’re in 19 countries, including Europe, and Canada, and Latin America. We have 1000 employees, which are up from seven which were originally at The Point.
In just 20 months, we’ve saved consumers more than $300 million. I think that that’s really the number that grabs you.
Lauren: No kidding.
Julie: And then we have 11 million customers, so chances are, if you’re not on Groupon, then one of your friends is, and hopefully they’ll rope you in soon so we can all get the discount.
Lauren: Exactly. So, Julie, how do you line up the deals? How do you decide what discount is going to be on Groupon and who gets what which day?
Julie: It’s really up to the merchant. When we’re setting up the deal, we ask them, “At what point would it be worth it for you to offer 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent off?” That’s where that tipping point comes from ‑ the minimum number of people that need to buy. Because, basically, that minimum number is the number of people that we’re promising to that business. So, if the tipping point is 30, we’re saying, “If you agree to offer this discount, we promise that we will give you at least 30 customers.” So that’s kind of how we set up that deal.
We’ll say, “I’d be very willing to offer 50 percent if you could get 100 people in my door.” Things like that shape the context of the deal, and as far as setting up what you guys see every day, it’s kind of an art form. We only accept businesses that are very high quality, which means positive online reviews. They have to have a website. The website has to show pricing.
We want people to feel like everything is answered up front, and it’s a really simple, easy to understand shopping opportunity.
And beyond that, it’s got to be a business that has great word of mouth. If you go to a site like Yelp or Citysearch, they should have great ratings there. And then, we have people internally who will look at the deals and figure out what will offer the most variety. We don’t ever want you to log in to Groupon and see the same deal five days in a row.
Lauren: I know you guys have different Twitter and Facebook… You’re using social media a lot, and very well. How has it affected business, in your opinion?
Julie: We see ourselves as being built on the social graph of sites like Twitter and Facebook, basically just saying that if an idea like this had come out 10 years ago, there were sites like Mecharta and other online commerce sites where they were selling… For one, they were selling goods. They were selling electronics and things like that. But mostly, it was the fact that people didn’t have Facebook pages, and they didn’t feel comfortable sending an email to a friend and saying, “Hey, buy this with me.”
I think that, for a long time, people were very skeptical and it sort of felt like a scam. Now that we’re so comfortable with places like Facebook and Twitter, and we’re constantly updating our profile and sharing links. You interact with your friends more online than you do in real life, sometimes.
The crux of all of those social sites coming together and becoming popular, as well as our site launching at that time, I think was a recipe for success. And beyond that, there are some businesses that interact with their customers only on Facebook, or only on Twitter.
Or, the other side is when you work with small merchants… Sometimes if it’s a Mom and Pop restaurant who’s been around for 40 years, they don’t have a Facebook page, or they don’t understand Twitter. So, that’s where we come in. We’re kind of a marketing partner. We’ll say, “We’ll navigate the Internet for you and make you famous for one day, and then you don’t have to worry about it. We’ll take care of the discussion forum. We’ll blast you out on Twitter and make sure that everyone knows about you, and you get a great write up.”
It really helps us in a lot of different ways.
Emily: You guys are doing a pretty interesting social media promotion right now, where… Why don’t you tell us a little bit about it? I know that Lauren and I have been Tweeting at him a little bit. In fact, we tried to get them on our show, as well, but I know he’s busy right now.
Julie: Oh, sure. We have a promotion called “Live off Groupon,” and the ideas was Groupon offers different things to do, and eat, and see, and buy. We touch every part of your life. We also… At the same time, we wanted to demonstrate that, and we also wanted to do something that was just completely ridiculous and people would say, “That sounds like Groupon, but it also sounds like it can’t be done.” And so, we put out a search looking for a customer that was willing to live off of Groupon for an entire year, which means they cannot touch cash, no matter what. We got tons of entries, like literally 20,000 entries.
Emily and Lauren: Wow.
Customers had to make two different videos. They had to visit a Groupon business and explain to us why they were deserving of this journey. We wound up picking a guy from Chicago. His name is Josh Stevens. He went through a semifinal round, and had to blog.
He’s been to 15 cities so far. Right now he’s in Nashville, after working his way through Indiana, and Ohio, and New York. He was on the Today Show. Groupons don’t cover tax or tips, so he relies on social media. He’s got to get on Twitter or Facebook and say, “Hey everybody, I’m at a deli and I need $5 for tip. I’m at the corner of Broadway and Main. I need you to meet me here now.”
He has no transportation. He couch surfs a lot, so… It’s been great. It’s been a lot of fun, and our customers have had a great time meeting up with him in the different cities. He usually has extra Groupons he can share, or some things to take them to go do. It’s been a lot of fun.
Emily: Do you guys keep in contact with him on a daily basis, or do you just read his blog and see where he’s at? How does that work?
Julie: We definitely don’t help him. We’re kind of… I think there’s half of us that want to see him fail, just because that would be entertaining, and the other half of us want to see him succeed and earn the $100,000 at the end of the year that he would earn. He’s not getting any help from me, but I do talk to him pretty frequently, just to make sure that he is connecting with the right merchants, and that…you know…
Random things have happened. He showed up at a hotel that we had a Groupon for that didn’t have his reservation, or he signed a pretty thick contract, so negotiating what he can and can’t do… That’s usually when he calls me.
Emily: What has been the most difficult challenge on his little trip around the country?
Julie: From my point of view, I think the challenge is just staying focused, because you’re not allowed to see your friends or family for an entire year. He’s granted… His friends and family can come visit him once. So for me, I think that would be the hardest thing. I don’t know if I could make it a year without seeing the people that I care about. But for him, what he said the challenge is… He’s got thousands of Groupons in his account, and he has about 40 in every city. He feels like it’s difficult to wade through all of those and figure out what activities there are. Does he have to make a reservation?
He doesn’t get any special treatment, so if he wants a massage, he has to make an appointment. Or if he wants to go to Nashville and visit a great cafe there, he has to find a ride, and he’s kind of at the disposal of anyone who’s willing to do that.
I think just the logistics of every day waking up and saying, “Where am I sleeping? How am I getting there? What activity can I do?” Those kinds of things, I think, are where he’s feeling the stress.
Lauren: No kidding.
Emily: But so much fun, I’m sure.
Julie: It is. I mean, we’re always keeping thing interesting, so we sort of have a secret bounty out in his head, which is that we trust our customers and if anyone sees him using cash, take a picture and send it to us, and maybe we’ll split some of the profit with you. You never know.
Lauren: So Julie, what’s next for Groupon?
Julie: I think… We’re growing at a crazy rate. We’re opening about three cities every two weeks. We’ve got training classes coming in here that are filled with people. People in accounting and in editorial. I think we’re just focused on perfecting what we’ve already pioneered and making things as cool as they can be. I think we’re all really happy with how far Groupon has gotten, but just think about how much cooler it could be in another 20 months. We’ve only been around for less than two years, so in two years from now, just imagine.
I think that we’re all really inspired by that, and just the amount of possibilities that are out there. So, it’s just improving our product. We’re really focused on making deals more hyper local, so that means that you may live in Boston, but hopefully we can zoom in on your neighborhood and give you something that’s really relevant to you. We’ll continue to move in that direction.
Emily: That is so cool. That’s actually all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for being part of Groupon. It’s so fun to come in to work every day, anticipate what the Groupon of the day is going to be.
Julie: Definitely. If you guys have any suggestions, you have to let us know.
Lauren: Absolutely.
Emily: We’ll see that we will. Thanks so much, Julie. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Lauren: Thanks, Julie.
Julie: All right. Thanks a lot, guys.
Lauren: And for everyone else, make sure to tune in next week for Real Time Digital, hosted by The JAR Group.
Emily: Yep. [music]
