Trials and Tribulations of Humor in Advertising

Look through a reel of award winning commercials or a set of award winning print ads and one thing seems to stand out as irrefutably true - most are funny. Laughter is indeed the best medicine and we all love to be entertained by the comedic. There are some really positive things about using humor.

Bring on the Clowns!

First, humor is fun and we like to approach fun things. As such, people are more likely to attend to commercials if they know they're designed to be funny.

Second, humor relaxes audiences and gets their defenses down. If you think your target audience is going to argue against your message, humor can put them off guard and make it less likely that they will think badly of your ad or brand.

Second, humor can put people into a good mood, and this good mood can make them like your ad and even your brand better than before.

Third, humor can give your brand a more comfortable and less formal feeling. That's good if that's what you are after in terms of image.

What's So Funny About my Product?

But humor can and does backfire, particularly if used for an inappropriate product. Which products work best? Research shows it's consumer nondurables and business services, familiar and established products, frequently purchased and low priced products. Corporate advertising, industrial advertising and advertising of sensitive goods or topics and advertising of new products are least well suited to humor, particularly when the product category is risky and involves a lot of thought prior to purchase.

Does the Humor Match My Target?

Let's also realize that the word "humorous" includes a variety of techniques-puns, slapstick, satire, irony-and different techniques require different things on the part of the audience.

Puns, for example, require a certain amount of attention and thinking on the part of the audience in order for them to "get the joke." Consider, for example, the pun used in United Way's "Don't put all you begs in one ask it." Takes time to think about it, doesn't it? Furthermore, puns like these seem more appropriate for consumers who are more intellectually inclined-those willing to stop and say, "well, let me think about that."

Slapstick humor, on the other hand (like Little Caesar's "boot camp for training pizza deliverers") borders or the silly, and by virtue of the fact that it's a caricature of some familiar aspect of life it requires less attention and thinking to get it. The intellectuals are unlikely to go for the slapstick - it's too silly. But the young are likely to love it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Debbie MacInnis

Dr. Deborah J. MacInnis is the Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, and a co-author of Brand Admiration: Build a Business People Love. She has consulted with companies and the government in the areas of consumer behavior and branding. She is theory development editor at the Journal of Marketing, and former co-editor of the Journal of Consumer Research. Professor MacInnis has served as president of the Association for Consumer Research and vice-president of conferences and research for the American Marketing Association's Academic Council. She has received the Journal of Marketing's Alpha Kappa Psi and Maynard awards for the papers that make the greatest contribution to marketing thought. She is the co-author of a leading textbook on consumer behavior and is co-editor of several edited volumes on branding.