All For One & One For All - Group Buying Sites & Brand Communication

If there’s one sector doing particularly well in the current economic downturn, it’s the group buying market.

Groupon, which is leading the way in the UK, has nearly 2.5 million users and has become one of the top 50 most visited sites in the UK. And now, rumour has it that Internet giant Google is set to launch a daily discount service of its own - Google Offers - to compete with Groupon, Incahoot and others.

Worldwide Groupon reportedly had sales of $760 million in 2010 and is said to be targeting revenue in 2011 in excess of $1 billion. It’s big business.

The appeal is easy to see. Rather than paying the full price, group buying websites allow users to join forces to take advantage of special offers on experiences, restaurants and hotels. The sites use the group buying power of their members to negotiate discounts on products and services that consumers are looking for.

It represents something of a cultural shift. Until now there has been a dichotomy in modern life between “standing out and fitting in”. Whereas ‘standing out’ has tended to be “winning” in recent years, many developments - not least social networking and the re-emergence of the fundamental human need to connect and be sociable - suggest that “fitting in” might be becoming more important once again.

So with the group buying concept seemingly set to flourish, brands need to understand the implications for their own communication with consumers. In recent years, the whole thrust of development of brand messaging, communications, and even innovation has been to achieve as much individualisation as possible. Now it might seem that the pendulum may be swinging back to collectivism. This will require brands to adopt different strategies and a different tone of voice.

Nobody has done this more naturally than T-Mobile with its flash-mob advertising and the theme of “life’s for sharing” which contrasts campaigns that focus so heavily on the needs of the individual, like L’Oreal’s “because you’re worth it.

Brands need to appreciate what the group consumer approach might mean for their brand. It may require brands to talk less about “me” and the themes of individual empowerment, individual expression and individual needs, and more about “us” and how their brand can help customers connect with other people and what it means to be a part of a social group.