Humour in Advertising

In order for us to fully understand the effectiveness of humor as it pertains to persuasion, it will be necessary to get an idea as to whether or not there will be an effect, and to do that you will need to answer the following questions: What are the most likely goals that would be achieved by incorporating humor? It has been determined that the goal to communicate properly the humor that is to be used as well as what the effects will be. There have been studies that have found humor to be effective in getting the audience attention is more effective when no humor is incorporated especially in magazine ads, television ads, and radio ads. Humorous ad have been found to increase the comprehension of the ads contents by some researcher while others have concluded there

Advertising is much more complicated that people realize. There are many different ways that brands advertise to us. Sometimes if the brand is viewed in a negative light, or they are a new brand, the company will try to turn around their image by using things in their commercials that everyone likes in order to reach the widest range of people. Brands that everyone already has a positive opinion of do something similar, but to a lesser degree, because

The main purpose of commercials and advertisements is to persuade the viewer to purchase the product that is advertised, but not all commercials are successful in this endeavor. Companies, such as Budweiser and Kleenex, appeal to the viewers’ ethos, logos, and pathos in order to influence them to buy the advertised product(s). In order to appeal to each of the categories, companies use different tactics to catch viewers’ attention. The use of ethos, logos, and pathos can make or break an advertisement based on how it is being used.

The Taco Bell commercial had a little bit of humor, but at the same time serious in the sense of the food tasting so good. Honda was more informing people of the best model of a brand of their car. Luden’s cough drop was again informing people, as well as, a dramatic effect in the sense of someone acting ill. Glad commercial was more of showing compassion for the product. The Blue Wilderness was informing people of their wonderful product and showing compassion towards keeping dogs healthy. Eos also had compassion because it wanted people to feel the sense of relief after using it. Lastly, Volkswagen was more informational and wanted people to see the wonderful product that they are trying to

In this article released from The Onion the writer uses satirical strategies such as sarcasm, humor, and mockery to show how easily customers fall into the outrageous claims made by marketers.

Some companies like to tap into your emotions to make you feel sad or happy about something. Other companies make you laugh or make a reference to something you may know. The Turbo Tax commercial tries to persuade you to buy their product by making a reference so something that is well known and funny. The Snickers commercial tries to persuade you to buy their object by using part of their famous quote, and a humorous commercial. Companies are smart, and know what makes people want to buy/use a product.

Chapter three in The Humor Code by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner discusses their trip to New York and their conversations with the many different people they met. One of the events in this chapter was the fact that Peter was called by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. They wanted to know if their new advertisements were funny and whether or not they would help get the message across. After this call, Peter was intrigued as to if humor actually helps sell a product or get a certain message out to their audience. This intrigued me because I see this all over and never thought if it works. This made me think deeper into whether or not humor sells.

My advertisement was for the book In Depth: The American Revolution. With this ad, we used humor, patriotism, and snob appeal. The message was that you would do better in history/social studies and would “give you the inside scoop of the life of the founding fathers.” We mainly focused on a historical standpoint to get the message across. The ad was using elements from other interpretations for a not-so obvious humor appeal. I’ve noticed that the ad was mainly pathos and ethos, but mainly pathos.

The retail industry is a very competitive business to partake in. Companies will do anything to gain the attention and respect of a new customer. Advertising plays a big role in helping companies achieve these goals. The onion, a satirical website, released a mock press release that satirizes easily fooled customers through humor and meticulous mocking, in order to expose the phony marketing strategies companies use to allure customers. The onion takes the time to ridicule both sides of the advertising spectrum such as the consumers and advertisers.

Humor promotes laughter, and laughter releases endorphins in our brain that trigger the happy feels, and puts us in a good mood. It is well known, that if you can get the customer to laugh, then you are more likely to sell to that customer because laughter helps them drop whatever guard they are putting up. Another way this ad uses pathos, is by appealing to the fear of dropping our phone in water and damaging it. We all can relate to this type of accident, and we are always trying to prevent it, so we don’t have to worry about forking out the big bucks to repair or replace our beloved smartphone. In the commercial, Max pouring champagne on his phone and it shorting out, is a perfect example of pathos, by showing us that if you get your phone wet, it will damage it, unless you get the new Galaxy S7

Supporting quote, APA in-text citation, and APA references list entry: (Scharrer, E. Paradise, A. Bergstrom, A. Ren, Q.) (2005) Driving the use of humor in advertising is the belief that humor helps to create favorable responses toward an advertised product or

Advertising is a form of communication used to encourage or persuade an audience to continue or take some new action. But when advertisers produce an ad, they have many different variables that come into play if they want to successfully persuade consumers. The first most important step they have to figure out is, what type of audience they are trying to target. They then create images and intend to appeal specifically to the values, hopes, and desires of that particular audience. This is why someone would rather pick the well-known Malboro cowboy ads over the new female cigarettes of Virginia Slims. Each of these ads targets a specific audience;

There have been many advertising techniques over the past 50 years or so, but one of these changes is the adaption of ads to the shifting mind sets of people over time. An example of this previous statement is Folgers® Coffee. In the 1960s Folgers® launched an entire series of commercials which were demeaning towards women. The husbands in the commercials always had something witty and humiliating to say about the wives’ coffee, in one of the commercials the husband even goes on to say that the secretaries at his office made better coffee; the wives, sad and defeated, talked to a friend about the problem, prompting the friend to suggest she use Folgers®. The commercial always ended with the husbands’ approval and the wives feeling satisfied for attending to their husbands’ needs and wants.

In society parody advertisement is commonly used to draw attention to common issues in society that are normally overlooked. The first type of parody advertisements were caricatures. In history caricatures were used to prove a point in politics. Today most parody advertisements express views on alcohol, drugs, and other common issues that people struggle with to “fit-in” with society. A few examples of parody advertisements are Absolute on Ice, Barcode Escape, and Feed Me Spoof. These parody advertisements deal with issues such as: drinking and driving, underage drinking, money controlling society, the thrifting movement, and anorexia nervosa. These are common issues that have been around for years but in recent years they have become a

     However, with every positive side comes a negative, and advertising is no different. Advertising has been blamed for a great variety of negative social impacts. One of the major criticisms received by advertising is that it forces people to buy things they don’t really need, often projecting negative emotions such as fear, anxiety of guilt upon the consumer (Engel). It is claimed that advertising plays with our basic human emotions and takes advantage of them, using them as merely another technique to sell goods or services.