Groupon vs. Donald Trump...sort of

Groupon pulls ads from The Apprentice homepage following customer outrage

Groupon is seeing some serious backlash from angry consumers following a few ads that showed up on NBC.com’s The Apprentice homepage, which led many to believe that Groupon was a sponsor of the show. Seeing as how Donald Trump has been quite the obnoxious little media glutton as of late, he’s pissed off quite a few people, who have gone so far as to call for a Groupon boycott over their belief that the collective buying giant is somehow a Trump supporter. To counter those claims, Groupon announced today via the Groupon blog that it has blocked its ads from henceforth appearing on The Apprentice homepage.

Following the appearance of Groupon’s ads on The Apprentice homepage, political activist group ThinkProgress demanded that Groupon stop “sponsoring” the show via a particularly incendiary tweet: “Dear @Groupon: Are you going to continue to sponsor The Apprentice and support Donald Trump + his malicious attacks on our President?”

To that, Groupon spokesperson Julie Mossler responded in the Groupon Blog:

“Here’s the thing: Groupon has never been a sponsor of The Apprentice on TV or on the web. We invest heavily in online advertising through networks that place ads on a rolling basis, meaning that we know one will appear on NBC.com but not specifically which page. We know that some advertising appeared on the Apprentice home page a few weeks ago.”

Mossler added that due to customer anger, Groupon will ensure that its ads do not appear on The Apprentice homepage in the future, but she points out that Groupon is not making a political statement. “It’s the same reason we don’t run deals on guns or abortion,” she stated, explaining that the move was made purely to avoid upsetting customers.

That actually kind of bums me out a little bit, since I was sincerely hoping that Groupon WAS making a political statement by pulling its ads from The Apprentice homepage. But no such luck…

Trump, the infamous real estate developer turned reality TV star whose comb-over seems to have taken on a life of its own, was at the heart of the recent “birther” outrage, accusing President Barack Obama of not being a U.S. citizen and thus not qualified to be president. The right-wing media frenzy led to the White House’s release of President Obama’s long-form birth certificate, which proves that he was born in Hawaii.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has not yet released his birth certificate to prove that he was not born a douche.

Image source: blogspot.com