Groupon added 50,000 new subscribers after the Super Bowl

As you know, members of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites ripped Groupon for its tongue-in-cheek Super Bowl commercials poking fun at sanctimonious celebrities and their cause du jour.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason took to the company’s blog to explain and defend the ads, insisting that the startup didn’t intend to “trivialize the cause.” It even established a fund, called SaveTheMoney.org, in which it pledges to match donations to specific causes, up to $100,000. Problem is the company never said that in the commercials, so instead it seemed Groupon was using Tibetans, endangered whales, and Brazilian rainforests as a punchline.

In response to the outpouring of criticism on sites like Twitter and Facebook, Mason said Groupon—and its ad agency, Crispin Poreter + Bogusky—will tweak the end of the commercials to draw attention to the causes.