Psychology of Advertising: Humor and Ads

The article written by Graeme Galloway in Psychology & Marketing titled, "Humor and Ad Liking" discusses a study conducted to explain why humor is ads are more well-liked and research possible theories to help advertising develop future ad content. "As much as 30% of the billions of dollars spent on advertising in national media each year is used for the placement of humorous ads," said Galloway (pg. 780). Some factors that humor ads are influenced by include attention, comprehension, persuasiveness, attitude towards product, memory, and ad liking. While these factors can be identified, understanding how humor effects ads are not as easily identifiable, leaving advertisers scratching their heads for future effective humorous ads or confused by the failure of past ones.

This study examines the relationship between ad liking with incongruity-resolution humor, sensation seeking, and arousal level. Incongruity resolution is defined as a "structural feature of humor characterized by the introduction of an incongruity which can be completely resolved," (pg. 780). One theory identifies how variables of individual differences and moderating these effects with positive known factors of consumer behavior, such as: mood, need for cognition, attitude toward product category, prior brand evaluation, extroversion/introversion, affect intensity, and self-monitoring. However, with humor ads, other factors must be identified to study the effects, including sex role, sex of consumer, cultural background, and cultural orientation.

Since incongruity resolution is of more relevance to advertising than non-sense humor, messages that are left unresolved or create new absurdities in attempt to resolve, it is important to further examine the incongruity resolution humor effects in relation to arousal and sensation seeking levels. Higher sensation seekers are thought to have a lower level of arousal, which incongruity resolution humor would raise arousal level compared to those which have a lower sensation seeking and a higher arousal base. The study needed to break down the participants to identify their individual differences in order to correctly observe and analyze their reception to the ads they were exposed to. The 42 undergraduate participants were shown 54 ads that were rated for funniness, arousal, and general liking. The results indicted that lower sensation seekers did not like the non-humorous ads and liked the humorous ads, and the higher sensation seekers liked both with humorous ads slightly more negative in ratings.

These findings did not solve the lack of understanding why humor works, but can be utilized by advertisers in understanding the psychology of humor ads. Lower sensation seekers had a significant increase when viewing humorous ads and high sensation seekers still had a higher rating of humor ads although it was less than the non humorous ads. Advertisers should keep in mind that incongruity resolution humor is more important in evaluating the ad since arousal levels and sensation seeking are different.

Some successful funny ads that use incongruity resolution humor are the Old Spice commercials, where viewers of both sexes can identify with the images with the end message of what a man should smell like.


This ad targets both lower and higher sensation seekers because the arousal level is increased but not to an unpleasant level, which then a higher sensation seeker would evaluate this ad to be negative. The humor of this ad becomes more resolved as the commercial evolves and that increases the likeliness and arousal level for lower sensation seeker, as the study examined. The messages of both the Old Spice ads use a balanced arousal induction humor that targets both sensation seeking levels.


SOURCES:
Galloway, Graeme (2009), "Humor and Ad Liking: Evidence That Sensation Seeking Moderates the Effects of Incongruity-Resolution Humor," Psychology & Marketing, Volume 26(9): 779-792.

Old Spice Commercial, "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE

Old Spice Ad http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/old-spice-commercial-roundup/