Groupon’s PR response blasted as ‘amateur’

“People forget we’re a new company. It’s one of those things where, OK, we’re still growing up as a company. Now that we figured that out, there’s no reason to think it’s going to happen again.”

So said a Groupon exec in responseto a Financial Times reporter asking about accounting irregularities that have plagued the recently IPO’ed tech startup.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or cringe in embarrassment at this bizarrely amateur statement. Worse is that it was made to the Financial Times (FT), a newspaper read by investors and business executives. The very people Groupon can least afford to offend by its confusing messaging.

Unfortunately, this sort of cavalier attitude toward corporate communications is nothing new at Groupon. It follows a long line of embarrassing remarks, statements and simply poor PR from the firm. In each, and especially that quote to the FT, it’s as though the company is basically saying, “Hey, we’re young; sh*t happens.”