Challenge: Early 2010, just over a year after launching, Groupon - a revolutionary new online marketing model for local businesses - was poised for explosive worldwide growth. Groupon needed to spread the word about their concept among local business owners and sign up new subscribers to assist with overall company growth. Subscribers receive a daily email with something in their city at an unbeatable discount of 50-90% off. For the deal to become active, a preset number of people must purchase the deal for it to "tip." The tipping point ensures that the deal will be worthwhile for businesses, while still providing an incredible deal for consumers.Armed with nearly two million subscribers in early 2010, the media was just starting to catch on and the challenge was using media to expand the customer base, support new Groupon markets and facilitate growth.Strategy: Use CEO, Andrew Mason, for press opportunities. Introduce new type of e-commerce to reporters and encourage trial. Find merchant success stories and pitch across business, consumer and industry press.Outcome: Media generated more than 10 million impressions per week, with 92-95% positive coverage. In 2010 alone, Groupon exploded from 29 markets to more than 400 markets in 37 countries worldwide. The total number of subscribers grew from 1.8 million to more than 50 million.

The execution was as much about strategic media selection as the actual secured results. At first, Mason honed his media skills with local TV spots in Chicago, quickly moving to national business outlets and then mainstream national media, such the Today Show. With the media team’s help Andrew represented the perfect balance between geek cool, unprecedented marketing tool and company genius.

On a local market level, Groupon created awareness and "new market launch" press in every one of the local markets the company took root in, including extensive blanketing of local broadcast and print outlets.One huge success was the Live Off Groupon campaign, a challenge and social media campaign for one customer to quit his job, give up his life and use nothing but Groupons (NO CASH) to travel the U.S. for a year. To date, Josh has visited 40+ cities, grown to 2000+ Twitter followers and 12,000+ FB fans and achieved 33 million media impressions.

Praised for transparency in communication, Groupon and Mason were successfully positioned as case studies in customer service, corporate communications, crisis management best practices, unprecedented growth and others.

Achievements-Averaging 94% positive/neutral coverage-Nearly 1 trillion impressions-Mason on the cover of Forbes Magazine, August 2010-10 minute Nightline segment-CEO on cover of Entrepreneur Magazine-Five positive feature segments on The Today Show and The Early Show within one year-Numerous positive appearances in the Wall Street Journal, AP, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Charlie Rose, many others-CEO named to Fortune 40 Under 40-CEO named Top 100 Most Creative Minds in business by Fast Company-Groupon named #5 on Fast Company's list of 50 Most Innovative Companies 2011-Groupon named in Top 5 Hottest Internet Companies by FOX News-Launched/executed successful social media campaign, LiveOffGroupon.com, challenging one customer to give up everything and live on Groupons alone for one year.