The scene: a conference room at Groupon HQ, last Thursday.

Marketing Guy One: &''Hmm. Kenneth Cole tweeted something jokey today about Egyptians going crazy for his spring collection and he&'s being pummeled mercilessly online for being &''extraordinarily tin-eared&'' &8212' whatever that means.

Marketing Guy Two: &''Uh-oh. Do you think maybe our Super Bowl Tibet ad will be similarly pilloried by people for what they call &''bad taste&'' and what we call &''advertising&''

Marketing Guy One: &''Well, the $3 million is already spent, so the point is moot. Better have PR prepare an apology statement for Monday, just in case. But don&'t worry, dude: buzz is buzz, bro!. High five!

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=vVkFT2yjk0A&'feature=player_embedded

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Tags: advertising

Companies: Groupon, kenneth cole

People: kenneth cole

Tags: advertising

Companies: Groupon, kenneth cole

People: kenneth cole

Dan Mitchell covers media and technology for VentureBeat, Fortune.com, and anyone else who will pay him. He previously covered the rise of the Internet for Wired, Cnet News.com, Red Herring, the Industry Standard, Business 2.0 and other publications and was a Web producer for National Public Radio. For three years he wrote the column "What's Online" for The New York Times' Business Day. His popular blog "Daily Bread," about the business and political economics of food, ran for two years on Slate's business site, The Big Money.

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