Presentation on "Effectiveness of Humor in Advertisement"

2. Contents
 What is Humor
 According to the Theory
 What is advertisement
 Humor advertisement
 Involvement
 Effectiveness
 Contribution to the success.
 Positive Brand impact
 Benefits of Humor in Advertising
 Humorous Advertising can change the
concept of any product.
 Effect of ad humour on Recipent
 Relief Theory
 Superiority Theory
 Incongruity Theory
 Guideline for Humor Advertisement
 Seven Reasons to Laugh

3. What is Humor:
“state of mind.”
“humor is anything that causes amusement.”

4. According to the Theory:
 One theory states that humor results from incongruity or deviations from
expectations.
 In other words humor can be something unrealistic, exaggerated, or
unexpected.
 Mowen, J.C., & Minor M.S. (2001) Consumer Behavior-A
Framework. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall

5. What is Advertising:
“Any paid non personal communication of information about products or ideas by
an identified sponsor through the mass media in an effort to persuade or
influence behavior.”
Advertising is about attracting, holding, and focusing attention, and nothing gets our attention like a
funny TV spot. But funny is a double-edged sword.

6. Humor advertisements:
 Humor in advertising is a delicate method of attracting a viewer's/listener's
attention to the client's product. Done right, it achieves success. Doing it
right means not only engaging the prospect but getting them to remember the
product.

8. Humorous Advertisements
A bit of humor is always
welcome!
If your creative strategy is based in humor, it
might not be the best ad, but it will certainly
catch people's attention.
TCAInspired(blogger) thinks that making a
good ad is cool, but making a funny ad is
better.

9. Involvement
Involvement is defined as an individual, internal state of arousal with intensity,
direction, and persistence properties.
 Involvement has been identified as an important variable that influences
advertising effectiveness.

10. Contribution to the success.
 There are three things that contribute to the success of the humour as an
advertising appeal. Humour makes Consumers to
 1. Watch
 2. Laugh
 3. Remember.
Humor is used in about 24 percent of TV ads and about 35 percent of radio ads.

11. Positive Brand impact
 When we see a funny advertisement we tend to discuss it with our friends and
family.
 It tends to bring a higher level of involvement to the consumer.
 These two factors help build a companies positive brand image.
 E.G: Ufone
 Because of this Ufone was declared as the best telecom brand in Pakistan by
Nielson survey. It has also won the best advertising campaign award of 2010-
11 given by Pakistan Advertising society (PAS).

12. Benefits Benefits of Humor in
advertising.
There are many benefits associated with using humour in advertising. We will
look at each of them.
1. Attention
The major advantage of using humour in advertising is that it grabs target
audience’s attention. Target audience pays more attention to the ads that are
funny and entertaining than factual and serious ones.
2. Improves the Brand Image.
Another advantage of humorous ads is that it improves the brand image. People
tend to like that particular brand that uses humour in their ads.

13. Benefits of humour in advertising.
3. Good Word of Mouth
Humorous ads help to spread the good word of mouth about a particular
brand. Usually people talk about the ads which are funny and entertaining.
4. Increase Brand awareness.
The basic objective of most of the ad campaign is to increase the brand awareness among the target audience.
For that purpose they have to ensure that maximum number of people watch their ads. In short they have to
break through the clutter. Humorous ads helps to achieve this objective of advertisers as most of the peoples
are attracted to funny ads and thus it increases the awareness of that particular brand.
5. High Recall
Humorous ads tend to have high recall among the target audience which finally helps to increase the market
share of a brand.
6. Humorous ads improve the mood of Target audience.
Humorous ads tend to improve the mood of the target audience and made them to relax which improves the
overall image of the brand and leads to the purchase decision. Happy consumers associate good mood with the
advertiser’s product.

14. Humorous Advertising can change the
concept of any product.
 Therefore the advertisers need to be very careful while selecting the appeal
for their ads. The advertisers must make sure that the appeal is in compliance
with their products values, positioning statement and the product’s concept.
Similarly if not executed correctly the humour appeal can change the overall
concept of the product. Advertisers must make sure that humour must not
overpower the advertisement. When humour fails it is because the joke in the ad
is remembered but the message is not or it is perceived incorrectly.

15. Effect of ad Humour on recipient
There are many theories of humour which attempt to explain what humour is,
what social functions it serves, and what would be considered humorous.
1. Relief theory
2. Superiority theory
3. Incongruity theory

16. Relief theory
Relief theory maintains that
laughter is a homeostatic
mechanism by which psychological
tension is reduced. Humour may
thus for example serve to facilitate
relief of the tension caused by one's
fears. Laughter and mirth,
according to relief theory, result
from this release of nervous energy.
Humour, according to relief theory,
is used mainly to overcome
sociocultural inhibitions and reveal
suppressed desires. It is believed
that this is the reason we laugh
whilst being tickled, due to a build-
up of tension as the tickler "strikes".

17. Superiority theory
The superiority theory of humour traces back to Plato and Aristotle, and Thomas Hobbes'
Leviathan. The general idea is that a person laughs about misfortunes of others (so called
schadenfreude), because these misfortunes assert the person's superiority on the
background of shortcomings of others. Socrates was reported by Plato as saying that the
ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance. For Aristotle, we laugh at
inferior or ugly individuals, because we feel a joy at feeling superior to them.

18. Incongruity theory
The incongruity theory states that humour is
perceived at the moment of realization of
incompatibility between a concept involved in a
certain situation and the real objects thought
to be in some relation to the concept
This theory is base on the assumption that the
crucial element in a humorous situation is a
kind of incongruity which surprise the recipient
. while she except some certain features that
ad evoke the situation that ad does not comply
with the recipient expectation . however in
order to be humours, the situation must be safe
and not threatening.

19. Role of humour in advertising
 Launches
Humour can assist cut-through without detracting from communication effect if
done right.
But humour can distract from the message if misused –can be critical for
launches.
 Relaunches
Humour can inject life into the news.
 Maintenance
Humour is a particularly good route for making advertising distinctive and
involving- key when performing a maintenance role.

20. Guideline for humor advertisement
1. Do use humour to entertain. People love to be entertained. (What do you do in
your free time?)
2. Do use humour to be thought-provoking, but not offensive.
3. Do test humorous concepts, not techniques. Slapstick, irony and word play are
techniques, but what is the idea you want to convey?
4. Do let your reader/listener/viewer experience the joy of "getting it." You'll make
a friend.
5. Do engage the imagination of your customers. Theirs may be even bigger than
yours.
6. Do the homework on your customer, and I don't necessarily mean formal
research. A renowned copywriter from the early days of advertising called
research "putting on my hat and going out to talk to people." Humour comes
from knowing your audience inside-out.

21. Guideline for humor advertisement
1. Don't over-analyze a humorous idea. It's funny, or it's not. As Mark Twain
said, "Trying to figure out why something is funny is like dissecting a frog.
You'll come up with answers, but the frog always dies."
2. Don't use humour for its own sake. Make it relevant to your objective.
3. Don't use humour to deceive or tell a lie. It's a scientific fact that humor
intensifies positive physical and psychological reactions; deceit will
undermine these good feelings and supplant them with anger and
resentment.
4. Don't forget that rules are meant to be broken. The best humor comes from
the edge, where there are no rules.

22. BUT DO NOT FORGET
That rules are meant
to be broken.
The best humor comes
from the edge, where
there are no rules.

23. Seven Reasons To Laugh
1. Comparison - Putting two or more
elements together to produce a
humorous situation.
2. Personification - Attributes human
characteristics to animals, plants and
objects.
3. Exaggeration - Overstating and
magnifying something out of proportion.

24. Seven Reasons To Laugh
4. Pun - Using elements of language to
create new meanings, which result in
humour.
5. Sarcasm - sarcasm is a separate
category including blatant ironic
responses or situations.

25. Seven Reasons To Laugh
6. Silliness - Silliness ranges from
making funny faces to ludicrous
situations.
7. Surprise - Includes all
advertisements where humour arises
from unexpected situations.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/article/Review-Business/76941382.html

26. Effectiveness
 Humor can influence attitudes and behaviors:
1) Humor places people in a good mood, which in turn lowers
counterarguments to the message.
2) Humor can attract attention to an ad and increase its recall and
comprehension.
3) Its strongest effect is that it increases the likeness of the advertising.
Mowen, J.C., & Minor M.S. (2001) Consumer Behavior-A
Framework. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall

27. Effectiveness.
 Humor has to be planned carefully in order to avoid unanticipated negative
effects:
1) Humor can reduce the comprehension of the message.
2) Using humor may shorten the life of the ads.
3) It can have a negative effect on various audiences.