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In today's multicultural environment, the influence of cultural orientations on humorous advertising outcomes is increasingly significant for researchers and practitioners. Drawing on a theoretical framework from culture dimensions and theories of humour in advertising, this research examines the moderating role of cultural orientation on the relationship between humour styles and consumers' attitudes towards humorous ads. Empirical results from studies conducted in Brazil, China and the United States show that uncertainty avoidance moderates the effect of cognition‐evoking humorous ads on consumers' responses to the ads, while individualism–collectivism moderates the effect of affect‐evoking humorous ads on these responses. Specifically, consumers from countries with high uncertainty avoidance (e.g., Brazil) have more favourable attitudes towards and perceive greater humour from cognition‐evoking humorous ads with closure than those from countries with low uncertainty avoidance (e.g., China, United States). In addition, consumers from collectivist countries (e.g., China, Brazil) have more favourable attitudes towards and perceive greater humour from affect‐evoking humorous ads with closure than do those from individualist countries (e.g., United States).

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PurposeFew studies illustrate how contextual effects (e.g. assimilation and contrast) in pay-per-click ad design may impact consumers' attitudes and purchase intention. To fill this research gap, the authors provide theoretical predictions and empirical evidence on how ad design may prompt an assimilation and/or a contrast effect that may influence consumers' attitudes toward the ad and the brand and purchase intention. They also investigate whether the impact of contextual effects on consumers' decisions depends on the level of vividness in the ad.Design/methodology/approachA 2 (vividness: dynamic motion vs. static page) × 2 (information design: assimilation vs. contrast) × 2 (aesthetic design: assimilation vs. contrast) between-subjects experimental design is used to examine the effects of vividness, information design and aesthetic design. Conditional process analysis is used to assess the mediating role of attitudes toward the ad and the brand in the relationship between contextual effects and purchase intention.FindingsFor dynamic ads (i.e. high vividness) but not for static ads (i.e. low vividness), combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs generate a more favorable attitude toward the brand and a higher purchase intention than do combined information assimilation and aesthetic assimilation designs. Notably, combined information contrast and aesthetic contrast designs have the strongest effects than any other combination of assimilation and contrast designs of information and aesthetics. Attitudes toward the ad and the brand are significant mediators between contextual factors and intention to purchase.Research limitations/implicationsThe study examines the effectiveness of online ads from a new theoretical angle based on the attributes of pay-per-click ads.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that when advertisers decide to use dynamic ads, they should adopt a contrast design for both the ad information and its aesthetics.Originality/valueThis study fills a research gap in the contextual effects literature, including providing evidence of an underlying process in the relationship between certain contextual effects and purchase intent. It also extends previous findings of assimilation/contrast in information design to aesthetics design and advances the literature on vividness by examining a moderation effect of vividness.