Groupon, the leading local marketplace that enables customers to discover services and experiences through local businesses, has a brand ambition to make fun affordable again. According to Groupon’s Rut Report, a study of more than 2,700 U.S. adults, 62% said their daily lives feel repetitive, 54% said the cost of going out keeps them from trying new things, and 82% agreed that real experiences make them feel better than scrolling online. On the Groupon platform, customers can find offers on everything from restaurants and spa treatments to entertainment venues and travel packages.
To combat the rut, Groupon launched a new brand campaign, ‘Turn Life on with Groupon,’ and briefed the M+C Saatchi Performance team to develop brand creative to run on channels such as Meta, YouTube, and Streaming.
Localized versions were developed for cities including New York, Chicago, Madrid, Dublin, Manchester, San Jose, Seattle, LA, and Birmingham. The campaign marked the next chapter in Groupon’s transformation: helping people live to the fullest, for less.
The primary objective was to drive both reach and conversion across multiple markets while maintaining agility, emotional authenticity, and brand consistency without the use of traditional live-action production.
Groupon needed to acquire new users and re-engage lapsed customers in an increasingly competitive e-commerce marketplace.
Creative assets were developed within a human-directed, AI-enabled production workflow. For example, the storyboard and footage were AI-generated with human oversight and direction, resulting in production agility while maintaining brand consistency.
Localized storytelling helped to create vibrant, location-specific narratives that featured unmistakable local cues (NYC skyline, yellow cabs, etc.) to drive relevance and emotional connections with audiences.
Outcome: Rapid Creative Iteration
*Brand salience (data from third-party research firm): Data is shown in relative lift, and it’s the difference between Brand Salience before and after the Brand Campaign. Brand Salience refers to how easily Groupon comes to mind spontaneously in buying situations (“top of mind”).
**Google Brand Searches (YouTube): Relative lift in searches for the keyword “Groupon” attributable to YouTube ad exposure.
***Meta Brand Lift Study: Relative lift results, comparing exposed vs. non-exposed audiences, with a 99% lift probability vs. similar tests in the same region/industry.
“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Groupon on their Turn Life On brand campaign. The brief gave us a great opportunity to showcase the depth of talent within the M+C Saatchi Performance creative team while leveraging AI tools to produce work that’s both innovative and efficient. Our AI-powered, human-directed approach ensures technology enhances, not replaces, the strategic creative judgment that defines strong storytelling.
“Partnering with M+C Saatchi Performance on Turn Life ON combined creative ambition with executional speed. Their AI-enabled creative workflow gave us the flexibility to iterate quickly, localize efficiently, and scale without compromising craft or consistency. The campaign had a clear impact in target cities with brand investment, where we saw higher growth rates than control cities across almost all main KPIs during the flight, and it sustained a post-flight halo, evidence of incremental demand creation. Turn Life ON proved that AI can make brand-building faster and more flexible while keeping standards high. We’re proud of what we built together, and this campaign raises the bar for how we deliver impact at Groupon.”
