Laughing in the face of embarrassment: Humorous marketing messages, excitement, and embarrassing products in retail

Abstract

Humorous messages can influence consumers differently based on the type of product and context; this research seeks to determine how humorous versus informative messages differentially impact consumer's responses to embarrassing products versus nonembarrassing products in retail. This paper proposes that humorous messaging may be used to counteract negative responses to embarrassing products as opposed to much of the research on consumer embarrassment which focuses on coping mechanisms and reducing the noticeability of a product in retail settings. Specifically, marketers may use benign humor to increase excitement and ultimately increase purchase likelihood of a product. The researchers examine the process through which consumers view humorous marketing of embarrassing products. Three studies, including a behavioral lab experiment utilizing a 360°video choice experiment as well as a Facebook ads behavioral experiment, are used to assess the proposed relationship. The findings indicate that for embarrassing products, humorous messaging is more effective than informative messaging at increasing purchase likelihood due to an increase in excitement. These results hold across a variety of marketing mediums. This research suggests that practitioners should use humorous marketing communications rather than informative marketing communications for embarrassing products in retail. K E Y W O R D S embarrassment, excitement, humor, marketing messages, retail "You may not be able to change a situation, but with humor, you can change your attitude about it." -Allen Klein 1 | INTRODUCTION While humor has been studied extensively in marketing (Warren et al., 2018), its effectiveness may vary based on the situation (Warren et al., 2019;Weinberger & Gulas, 1992). One important purchasing situation which lacks research in regard to humor is the influence of humorous marketing communications on consumer's perceptions of embarrassing products. Consumers will go to extreme lengths to avoid embarrassment in purchase situations, from avoiding other people (Dahl et al., 2001) to purchasing additional items, to attempting to disguise an embarrassing product (Blair & Roese, 2013;Nichols et al., 2015), to even stealing embarrassing products (Toth, 2007). While most research on embarrassment in marketing focuses on shoppers' reactions to embarrassing products in store, marketing communications external to the retail environment may also influence the way a consumer perceives a stereotypically "embarrassing" product.Marketing communications may help normalize embarrassing purchases (Dahl et al., 2001). Through marketing campaigns and

Joy and excitement in the purchase process: the role of materialism and brand engagement

“…Perceived brand excitement also positively affects brand loyalty (Slaton et al , 2020) and self-brand connection (McManus et al , 2021). Excitement also plays an important role in the effectiveness of advertising embarrassing products (Barney and Jones, 2023).…”

Luxury is what you say: Analyzing electronic word‐of‐mouth marketing of luxury products using artificial intelligence and machine learning

“…Dynamic (i.e., videos) rather than static (i.e., images) content can offer consumers experiences that transport them into the narrative of a luxury brand (Van Laer et al, 2014). On social media platforms in general, these videos have been shown to strengthen the intention to share the ad (Akpinar & Berger, 2017) and elicit positive affective and behavioral outcomes (Barney & Jones, 2023). Moreover, specifically on YouTube, there is evidence that social media video marketing increases brand awareness and purchase intentions (Dehghani et al, 2016; Filieri et al, 2023), as well as containing a variety of appeals and message tones (Park & McMahan, 2020).…”