I enjoyed the ads and thought they were rather clever.
Would you still have enjoyed them if they riffed off (say) the 9/11 attacks [1] in an attempt to be "edgy"?
Imagine ...
"The Twin Towers were destroyed, five planes blown up or crashed with all on board, 3000 Americans died ... but New Yorkers still make the best burgers..."
Would that be equally "clever and enjoyable" ? Or would you be outraged?
[1] I assume you are American. Feel free to replace with any atrocity you have a resonance with. And fwiw I believe "edginess" is a poor excuse no matter which specific incident of innocents being killed is used as background for the "edge"
Still, I think Groupon ends up on the wrong side of the controversy here - the ad just makes them look kind of insensitive or ignorant/ambivalent towards an issue many people feel strongly about. I'm curious whether the net effect of the extra publicity generated by the controversy outweighs the negative backlash.