Groupon Counts on Writers and Editors to Build Its Audience
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.
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.