Surprised to see no mention of Woot in the article. They've been using editorialized humor to sell a single heavily discounted product each day since 2006.

TechCrunch attributed Groupon's early success to their clever social engineering. This NYT Writer focuses on the clever copy, but I tend to agree with Sarah Tavel who says its all about the savings: http://www.adventurista.com/2011/04/stop-calling-groupon-soc...

It would be interesting to test. Write some dry copy, make the "tipping point" 1 coupon and see if it sells less than the funny/social counterpart.

You really don't need to go that far. Living Social is rapidly catching up to Groupon with fairly bland copy.

Single page: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/business/29groupon.html?_r...

Writers think it's the writing that makes a startup successful.

Engineers think it's the good, well-organized, efficient code.

Salespeople think it's their clever, shrewd selling strategy.

Management think it's their leadership.