Examining the Usage of Humor in Advertising

This page reflects the key findings from a literature review of current and prior research centered in the use of humor as a marketing and advertising strategy.

Why is Humor Important in Advertising?

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Since the creation of advertising, humor has been utilized as a tool to reach one of the main goals of any piece of branded content- capture attention. Its mass appeal made humor a key part of many a marketing strategy, but as the efforts of marketers have shifted away from traditional advertising mediums, such as print, television and radio, humor has evolved to remain relevant. In fact, throughout the push to take advertising efforts onto social media and digital, humor has been one of the few facets of advertising that has smoothly made the transition. Its versatility has made it valuable in this new area of somewhat uncertainty.

Humor Can Effectively be Used as a Marketing Tool.

Styles & Types of humor

In order to understand how humor has been capitalized upon, we must first examine the different types that are employed by advertisers. Humor can be split into seven categories. These classifications can be used to sort the varying forms that branded humorous content may come in. Another way of classifying the humor is to identify the form or medium in which it is being shared. While not all humorous content is shared in the same format, there are several popular formats than can be used to understand how humorous advertising can be transformed to fit social media formatting

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Potential for Persuasion

Humor as a marketing tool is powerful and offers many advantages. Other than its ability to capture consumer attention and incite an emotional reaction, humor has the ability to persuade. While this is a positive for marketing and advertising professionals, this persuasive ability of humor has consumers somewhat concerned about the possibility of a potential “masking effect” (Förster & Brantner, 2016), though this was found to be untrue.

Brands Are Using New Mediums to Reach Their Audiences.

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Branding is a practice as old as advertising itself. In a capitalist society, brands are competing against each other every day for sales, consumer attention and more. So, the goal for most brands, especially those in more competitive markets, is to differentiate themselves. An important part of this effort to establish a brand image is the medium in which the branding is conducted. Traditionally, advertising and branding efforts were done through print, radio, and television. These were where the audience was, so the majority of branding efforts were concentrated in these areas. Now, with the advent of the digital age and social media, brands are seeing a shift in where their target audience resides- and how to reach them.

Understanding How to Reach Your Audience is a Key Factor In Utilizing Humor In Advertising.

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A key facet of any branding or marketing effort is understanding how to reach your audience. Without the knowledge of where the target consumers lie and how to get your message to them, the potential success of your campaign becomes minimal. Luckily, there are ways in which marketers can both distinguish where and how to reach their audience. One mode of reaching an audience is to utilize social media. It’s unique ability to connect consumers and brands on a personal level make it an ideal mode of reaching your audience.

Humor Has the Ability to Influence Consumer Perception of Both the Advertisement and the Brand.

It comes as no surprise that humor, when used as a marketing tool by a brand, has influencing power over the perception of not only the advertisement, but the brand itself. It can create emotional reactions and impact brand attitudes- and not always in a positive way. Humor can also play a part in the spread or clouding of information. And while this influencing power is important, it also relates to the ability of humor to create a response in consumers that resonates. By creating an emotional reaction, humor ensures that consumers not only remember a brand, but also remember the content of an advertisement- something that is very important in the success of any marketing campaign.

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When Consumers are Exposed to Humor, Their Reactions May Vary.

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Web Pro Education

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Humor as a marketing tool, much like a compass, can point you in the right direction, but cannot reveal what awaits should you choose to follow it. As marketers employ humor, they have a desired response or reaction, but they cannot be sure what the consumers will actually think, feel or do. A major indicator of how this humorous branded content will be received is the level of consumer comprehension. Ensuring that the consumer can accurately understand the content is the most integral part of obtaining the desired reaction. Along with comprehension, it is important to understand what the desired behaviors are that marketers are trying to create with their humorous content, and what these behaviors could lead to, including following, likeing, commenting, and purchasing.

Humor Engages Consumers With Marketing Messaging.

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Humor, when used in branded content, is found to be entertaining. The more entertaining a piece of content is, the more engaging it is for consumers (Kujur & Singh, 2020). This is incredibly important to note, as in further research it is necessary to understand why consumers enjoy humorous content, beyond just the concept of it being “funny”. This finding implies that humor is always something positive for consumers, as they see it as entertaining. Another major finding arising from this research is that engaging with branded content is actually a part of a set of behaviors, not an independent behavior (Chu, Chen & Sung, 2015). This means that not only are consumers engaging with a brand just to engage, but the very fact that they follow the brand is correlated to then liking, commenting, and retweeting-and can even be linked to eventual purchasing.

As a Marketing Tool, Twitter Has Not Been Sufficiently Researched.

Throughout the study of literature pertaining to a specific topic, there will always be areas that could or should be expanded upon- especially when the topic is more modern. Social media is a booming marketing tool, and yet, due to how recently (and quickly) it has grown in popularity, there is not sufficient research about the individual platforms to make concrete conclusions. One area that could be expanded upon is the different social networking platforms, and their uses.

Twitter as a marketing tool should be researched to understand fully its proper use and purpose in comparison to other social networking sites. Aside from the SNSs themselves, the content within social media marketing as well has yet to have sufficient research conducted upon it. It’s true, there have been some findings from previous studies, including the most relevant styles and types of humor used on social channels (Taecharungroj & Nueangjamnong, 2015), consumer engagement metrics from Chu, Chen, and Sung (2015), and the potential emotional reactions to branded humorous content (Rasmussen, 2017), that implies that social media marketing content has already been studied and found.

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Research Questions

RQ1: Does the way in which humorous branded content on Twitter is presented, in a meme vs non-meme format,relate to the different emotional responses from consumers?

RQ2: Does the type of humor presented in branded content on Twitter relate to the emotions felt by of consumers when they are exposed to it?

RQ3: Does the type of humor presented in branded content on Twitter relate to the digital engagement choices of consumers when they are exposed to it?

RQ4: What emotions are felt by consumers when exposed to humorous branded content on Twitter?

RQ5: What is the relationship between exposure to humorous branded Twitter content and brand attitude?

If you would like to read a full copy of the literature review, you can find it here.

Final Literature Reviewpdf.pdf

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