Humor In Advertising
Introduction
The Budweiser frogs, Orbit gum, and VW commercials are prime examples of how humor is used to sell an idea or product. In these companies humor is the main reason why their commercials have such success. The reason these work so well is that audiences are looking for entertainment and something fresh. Audiences are tired of being bombarded by hundreds of advertisements each day. To catch the attention of a viewer waiting for his or her show to come back on a commercial needs to be entertaining and give the viewer a reason to pay attention. Comedy is one of the oldest forms of entertainment, plus it is simple and can be adapted to any situation. Also, studies have shown that people are more likely to be open to suggestion while in a good mood. This project will explain the reasons why we use humor in advertising and why it works so well.
Humor in advertising and how it sells
Humor is the capacity to perceive, appreciate, or express what is funny and amusing. Humor in advertising is a delicate method of attracting viewers, or listeners. Attraction and catching up target audiencefs attention to a clientfs product. Rarely can a person tune in to radio station without hearing an advertisement
that is meant to be humorous. Humor is in fact used in 30.6% of all radio advertising (Weinberger and Campbell, P.91).
People cannot be argued into buying a product unless they are attracted to the product through humor. Of course the first time someone watches a commercial of a particular brand, that brand name will not stick until it was found humorous and then probably yielding more attention ...
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...s of commercial interruptions throughout the show and in every one of them, three out of four commercials averaged out. As we close our newsletter we would like to share our opinion, expressing that we are all emotionally touched in some way by humor in advertising and hope that it is used quite often in the future.
References
Eron M. Berg, Louis G. Lippman. Does Humor in Radio Affect Recognition of Novel Product Brand Names? Journal of General Psychology, April, 2001.
Harlan E. Spotts , Marc G. Weinberger, Amy L. Parsons Assessing the Use and Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach.
Weinberger and Gulas 1992. Assessing the Use and Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach.
Weinberger et al. 1995. Assessing the Use and Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach.
...s, B. M., and W. Stroebe. (2010) “Setting the stage.” The Psychology of Advertising. East Sussex: Psychology, Print.
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