Humor in Television Advertising: A Moment‐to‐Moment Analysis

Elpers, J.L.C.M. Woltman; Mukherjee, Ashesh; Hoyer, Wayne D.

doi:10.1086/425094

Cited by 90 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The effect of humor on memory resembled that of a neutral cognitive task-a math problem-which fits well with the idea that humor arises from resolving an incongruity (Alden et al, 2000;Suls, 1972;Woltman-Elpers et al, 2004). This suggests that the processing of humor draws on limited cognitive resources, and thereby withdraws attention from the context.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

“…Although the definition of humor differs somewhat between the disciplines that study it, researchers generally agree that humor is a pleasurable experience that arises from an idea or event that is in some sense incongruous (e.g., Alden, Mukerjee, & Hoyer, 2000;Mobbs et al, 2003;Suls, 1972;Woltman-Elpers, Mukherjee, & Hoyer, 2004; for a review see Martin, 2007). Information that is incongruent with prior expectations or schemata enhances attention and elaborative processing (Heckler & Childers, 1992).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The puzzle of joking: Disentangling the cognitive and affective components of humorous distraction

Strick

Holland

Baaren

et al. 2009

Euro J Social Psych

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Studies in cognitive psychology, marketing, and education indicate that humor distracts attention from non-humorous information presented at the same time. Two experiments investigated why humor distracts attention. The two basic components of humor comprise (1) incongruency resolution, which poses cognitive demands and (2) positive affect. We disentangled the contributions of cognitive demands and positive affect on distraction based on the notions that (a) both components are possible sources of distraction, and (b) the components were always confounded in previous research. In an evaluative conditioning paradigm, novel products were consistently paired with humorous stimuli, whereas other products were paired with stimuli that were either (1) equally demanding but neutral, (2) equally positive but undemanding, and (3) undemanding and neutral. The results showed that cognitively demanding stimuli distracted attention, irrespective of stimulus positivity. These findings suggest that the cognitive demands of humor, not the positive affect it evokes, underlie the distraction effect.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 74%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The puzzle of joking: Disentangling the cognitive and affective components of humorous distraction

Strick

Holland

Baaren

et al. 2009

Euro J Social Psych

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“…Thus, the centrality of incongruity, superiority, and psychoanalytic theories in commercials is supported" (Scharrer et al 2006: 620). This conclusion matches with other analyses of advertisements that contained surprise as the key element (the incongruity model of humor) and who proved to be effective in obtaining positive responses (Woltman, Mukherjee, and Hoyer 2004). In their study about the combination of humor and violence in Super Bowl Commercials, Blackford and all noted the presence of all three types of models in these ads.…”

supporting

confidence: 81%

Violence Dressed in Humor: Comedic Violence in Advertising

Gradinaru¹

2015

JMC

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This paper investigates the concepts of humor and violence and their complex relationships contextualized in the advertising domain. Thus, the main theories of humor and the most important elements from media violence paradigms are critically pointed out. The effects of comedic violence in advertising may be positive (great involvement with the ad message, retention of brand information, higher pass-along probability), and also negative (offending the audience, desensitization, damaging the reputation and the brand equity). A lot of factors change the perception of comedic violent ads (such as gender or social norm beliefs), so that a multidimensional analysis of consumer perceptions is needed if we want to draw a more accurate picture of this phenomenon. The analysis of the specific ad that I developed in the second part of this paper showed clearly the interplay between perceived humor and perceived violence and also the relevance of the cultural background in its interpretation.

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“…Most prior measurements of entertainment determine the amount of entertainment present either via self-report using sliding scales or using independent judges (Baumgartner et al 1997;Woltman Elpers et al 2004). While the former is also an individual-specific measure, it is cognitively mediated and may interfere with attention to the ad.…”

Section: The Role Of Entertainment In Advertisingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why, When, and How Much to Entertain Consumers in Advertisements? A Web-Based Facial Tracking Field Study

2014

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The authors would like to thank Rich Sadowsky for customizing the web-based facial tracking system for this research. The authors would also like to thank Andy Dreisch and Brent Sapiro of Affectiva, Inc. for helping collect the data. The first author would like to thank John Deighton, Rohit Deshpande, Michael Norton and Rik Pieters for their valuable suggestions regarding an earlier version of this paper, and especially to Anissa Mak and Sumit Malic for valuable research assistantship. The usual disclaimer regarding responsibility for mistakes applies. 2 AbstractThe presence of positive entertainment (e.g., visual imagery, upbeat music, humor) in TV advertisements can make them more attractive and persuasive. However, little is known about the downsides of using too much entertainment. This research focuses on why, when, and how much to entertain consumers in TV advertisements. We collected data in a large-scale field study using 82 ads with various levels of entertainment shown to 178 consumers in their homes and workplaces. Using a novel web-based face tracking system, we continuously measure consumers' smile responses, and their viewing interest and purchase intent. A simultaneous Bayesian Hierarchical model is estimated to assess how different levels of entertainment affect purchases by endogenizing viewing interest. We find that entertainment has an inverted U-shape relationship with purchase intent. Importantly, we separate entertainment into that which comes before the brand versus that which comes after, and find that the former is positively associated with purchase intent while the latter is not. We conducted a large-scale field study by measuring entertainment 1 more naturally, in a web setting, and address three important questions. One, is there such a thing as having too much positive entertainment in ads? If too much positive entertainment can have detrimental persuasion effects in ads, and we find it does, then, two, it becomes important to understand how much entertaining content should be used. We find evidence that as much as a quarter of TV ads have passed the optimal level by dedicating too much of the ad time to entertain the consumer. KeywordsThree, does it matter when during the ad the entertainment occurs? We find that where entertainment is placed relative to the brand's first appearance has significant impact on the consumer's intent to purchase the brand.This research also provides new conceptual understanding of how the level of entertainment in an ad is related to its attractiveness and persuasiveness in increasing purchases.To do so, we propose a new individual-specific measure to identify whether the viewer associates the entertainment experienced in the ad with the brand based on the order of its presentation relative to the brand. We define pre-brand-associated entertainment (preBAE) as that which precedes the first presentation of the brand and post-brand-associated entertainment (postBAE) as that which follows the first presentation of the brand. These types of entertainment a...

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Humor in Television Advertising: A Moment‐to‐Moment Analysis

Cited by 90 publications

References 17 publications

The puzzle of joking: Disentangling the cognitive and affective components of humorous distraction

The puzzle of joking: Disentangling the cognitive and affective components of humorous distraction

Violence Dressed in Humor: Comedic Violence in Advertising

Why, When, and How Much to Entertain Consumers in Advertisements? A Web-Based Facial Tracking Field Study

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