A paper discussing the differences and effectiveness of humorous ads and emotional ads

1. A Comparative Study of Comedy
Advertisements versus Emotional
Advertisements
I. Abstract - This study examines the effect of comedy advertisements as against
emotional advertisements on the consumer, understanding their responses to both kinds
of advertisements, brand recall and preference to purchasing brands based on the
connect to the advertisement.
II. Keywords - humour advertisement, emotional advertisement, brand recall,
effectiveness
III. Introduction- The importance of a story in advertisements is essential for their recall.
If only facts and figures are bombarded to consumers regarding a product, they are less
likely to pay attention to it, as against introducing the product and bringing product features
to the attention of the consumer in the form of a story. According to Du Plessis (2005) as
well as Mehta & Scott (2006), emotional contents in advertisements aids in the recall of
the brand being advertised, whereas a research by Yueh-Hua Lee (May 2014) suggests
that when an advertisement makes someone laugh, they are more likely to want to be
associated with it.
The main objective of advertisements is to grab attention, create a likeability for the brand
and create a lasting impression. Sometimes it is observed that consumers remember the
context or story of the advertisement paying no attention to the brand being advertised.
With the advent of the social media and ubiquitous availability of mobile phones,
consumers are bombarded with advertisements at all instances, and this growing daily.
Consumers interact with brands at all levels and hence brands are fighting for consumers
attention in order to inform, persuade and remind consumers about them.
IV. Need for study - The success of a brand depends on the kind of response it gets from
the masses. The sale of the product is directly proportional to the kind of connect a buyer
feels for it. It is a widely known fact that people enjoy a good laugh but can we really ignore
the fact that where buying habits are considered, emotions play a major role as well.
Companies spend huge amounts of money in understanding the behaviour of consumers
and accordingly create advertisements to suite their brand as well as their audience. It is
essential for companies to realize how to stand out amongst the sea of brands and alter
consumer behaviour to suit their needs, in order to effectively utilize their advertising
budgets.

2. This study aims to understand what kind of advertisements make the buyer twitch. Hence,
an attempt has been made to understand whether it is the humor content or the emotional
aspect that makes the consumer loyal to a particular product.
V. Literature Review - Humorous situations are said to lower a person’s defences and
make one more attentive to the message. Lighter messages have lasting impressions and
are shared more frequently than serious messages. Humorous ads generally have a
surprising twist which is unexpected by the audience. These ads are generally those which
may need to be reinterpreted after the first watch. They force the audience’s mind to shift
from the autopilot mode, making them think more and grabbing their attention in the
process. Also, humorous ads generate positive feelings and bring about a feel good factor.
Laughter releases hormones which relieve stress and gives the audience a feeling of
satisfaction by activating the pleasure senses of the brains. Thus humor ads seem to be
an effective way to promote a product to the audience.
On the other hand, emotions are universally interpreted, it is a language of its own which
does not need words and is associated with a wide variety of feelings. The most effective
ads are those that strike a cord since emotions and memory are very closely linked. For
eg., phone is not used for simply making a call, but it is a means to be close to your family
and be at home even when far away from home. Does this talk of the features of the phone
or how it is better than all the other phones in the marketplace? Probably not, but it does
tell you about the lifelong benefits you will have with the phone and helps to strike an
emotional bond with the customer.
Another reason why emotional advertisements appeal to consumers is because
consumers have a tendency to connect themselves with the advertisement protagonists
and think and feel as if they are a part of the advertisement. For eg., an emotional ad
about differences between a mother and her son would make us all feel more
compassionate towards our own mothers momentarily.
Advertisers use emotional adverts quite often, especially in Asian countries, where greater
preference is given to familial togetherness and social values. Thus, emotional ads try to
override human logic, however the disadvantage is that arousal of emotions pass away
with time.
Both emotional as well as humorous ads are non-rational influence type of
advertisements, which are not based on facts and figures, instead relying on a personal
involvement with the consumer. Generally, it is found that high involvement products have
emotional advertisements, whereas low involvement products are advertised in humorous
ways. Also, emotional advertisements are lengthier than humorous adverts in order that
the feelings or emotions are comprehended by the consumer in the way required.
However, the question which remains is which of the two is more effective means to
advertise?

3. Let us try and understand effects of advertisement with the help of the Hierarchy of Effects
Model. This model was proposed by Robert J Lavidge and Gary A Steiner in 1961 and
elaborated a six step process from exposure to an advertisement to the product purchase.
The six steps are as follows:
Awareness
Advertisement helps to make the customer aware of the product. There is no guarantee
that the advertisement will be seen by the target audience, neither is there surety that the
customer will remember the brand being advertised. More often than not, the customer
may remember the context or story of the ad but forget the product actually being
advertised. Hence this step is very challenging while at the same time being a budget
heavy decision. Hence, the medium through which the ad will be broadcasted, as well as
the frequency of display of the ad needs to be decided after much deliberation on the
target audience and their viewing habits.
Knowledge
The advertiser then needs to disperse the product information through product packaging,
retailers, internet blogs, social media, video content etc. In today’s times, with extreme
exposure to social media where advertisements and video clicks go viral at the click of a
mouse, the advertisers need to convert social media marketing to their advantage. The

4. internet is a cheap means to disperse great amount of information at a low cost. Also, it is
a place where advertisers can connect and listen to what their customers think about them.
Also, customers are smart to follow the best deals which are easily comparable on online
portals. Hence, advertisers need to be always on their toes and try their best to keep the
customers always engaged.
Liking
The advertisers need to contemplate as to what features will make the customers like their
product to purchase it the first time. The customer feedback provided needs to be acted
upon quickly in order to please the customer in order to ensure that there are repurchases.
Preference
In today’s times, where both traditional retail and modern retail exist simultaneously,
consumers have a wide variety of choice of products. Consumers may buy one product in
a month and then buy a competing product in another month based on the discount and
offers on the products. The concept of brand loyalty present in earlier days has become
obsolete. Hence, advertisers compete with each other and try to be the only product in the
minds of the customer. They do so by highlighting their product’s unique selling point and
advantages over the competitor’s products.
Conviction
In this step, an attempt is made to modify the customer’s awareness to his need. A display
of products in retail is made where customers may be allowed to touch and feel the
product. This may include test drives, food-tasting, distribution of free samples and other
marketing strategies. Most online retailers display names of friends and family members
who may have purchased the same product in order to ensure to the customer that it is a
safe purchase.
Purchase
This is the last step of the process, wherein actual purchase of the product by the customer
is undertaken. Marketers ensure this step is simple and easy so that customers have a
satisfying experience. This requires a variety of payment options, high speed backend
processing, ready availability of spare parts, quick billing and other such features which
assist the customer and provide him a delightful experience.
This model is referred to as a hierarchy model because as we move up the hierarchy the
number of people at every level go on decreasing, the maximum being at the awareness
level and the minimum at the purchase level. Lavidge and Steiner suggested that the
above six steps are grouped together in three stages of consumer behaviour, namely,
cognitive, affective and conative. In order to ensure product purchase, these three
behaviours need to be encouraged by advertisers.

5.  Cognitive (thinking) is needed to ensure that the customer is aware of the product
being offered and has knowledge with respect to its features, price and place of
availability
 Affective (feeling) is needed to make the customer likes and has faith in the product
being advertised
 Conative (behaviour) is needed in order to transform the product knowledge,
likeability and conviction in the product to actual sale figures for the organization
Thus, every advertiser through his advertisements attempts to successfully upgrade his
customer through all the six stages, starting with product awareness and ending with
purchase.
VI. Objectives – The following are the objectives of this paper –
1) To understand the influence of emotional advertisements on consumers
2) To understand the influence of emotional advertisements on consumers
3) To perform a comparative study of humorous and emotional advertisements to
understand which has a higher impact on consumers.
VII. Research Methodology- A total of 68 respondents within the age-group of 23 - 27
years were shown a combination of 6 advertisements which consisted of 3 emotional and
3 humorous advertisements in an alternating fashion. The respondents were then asked
to fill a questionnaire which tested the brands recalled and their likelihood of purchase.
This questionnaire was then used to derive the results for the research paper.
VIII. Results –
It was found that people recollected more emotional ads than funny ads to the tune of 16
percentage points, which is significant.

6. Emotional Ads in comparision to Funny Ads, had far greater effect in reaching people, as
44% of the total respondents remembered 4 or more emotional ads.
For the Brand Eurovision, though many respondents remembered the Ad, but were not
able to recollect the brand name. In a similar case, a few repondents wrote 'Coke' instead
of 'Pepsi'
44%
16%
No. of people who recollected at least 4
ads
Emotional Ads Funny Ads
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
90.00%
Percentage of Respondents recollecting
different Brands
Percentage

7. This shows that respondents feel with an emotional Ad, the Brand Image goes up.
IX. Conclusion – Thus, we can conclude that emotional advertisements have a greater
impact on customers in terms of brand awareness, knowledge and liking as per the
Hierarchy of Effects model, as the emotional advertisements seemed to have a higher
brand recall. However, this recall may or may not translate into purchases by the
customer, since only 20 people that is less than 10 percent out of the total non-existing
buyers were definitely going to use the product. A meagre 56 people, that is 36.36% of
existing buyers said that they would definitely continue using the product. Thus,
advertisements in general are low towards conviction and purchase processes in the
Hierarchy of Effects model.
X. Future Scope of Study - Use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in
order to gauge consumer responses to humorous and emotional advertisements by
measuring brain activity at the precise moment the consumer is shown the ad.
XI. References
1. Emotional Persuasion in Advertising: A Hierarchy-of-Processing Model - Robert
Heath
2. How People Respond to Different Types of Humorous Advertising - Yueh-Hua Lee
3. The Effects of Emotional Marketing on Consumer Product Perception, Brand
Awareness and Purchase Decision: A Study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - Mai
Ngoc Khuong and Vu Ngoc Bich Tram
4. Beyond Attention Effects: Modeling the Persuasive and Emotional Effects of
Advertising Creativity - Xiaojing Yang and Robert E. Smith
5. The brand attitude formation process of emotional and informational ads - Changjo
Yoo and Deborah MacInnis
6. Humor in Advertising - Veronica Olsson and Åsa Larsson
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
Emotional Ad Funny Ad
Percentage of responses rating brand
image 6+
Percentage

8. 7. The impact of ‘likeability’ on advertising effectiveness: To what extent does liking
an advert have a persuasive influence on consumer behaviour? - Oliver Rimoldi
8. Impact of humor in advertising on consumer purchase decision - Anh Thuc Hoang