Consumer Response to Humor in Advertising: A Series of Field Studies Using Behavioral Observation

In a series of field studies, social and ellsiness events were promoted using humor-ous, non-humorous, and control formats. The humorous promotions significantly increased attendance for the social events, but showed no significant impact for business events. T he use of humor in advertising is a controversial issue for advertising managers as well as for writ-ers, theorists, and researchers (Sternthal and Craig 1973). Advocates of humor in advertising maintain that lighthearted message appeals secure audience at-tention, increase memorability, overcome sales resis-tance, and enhance message persuasiveness (Duncan 1979; Duncan, Nelson, and Frontczak 1984) by ... attracting attention in a relevant way, then by impart-ing pleasant information and making a soft sell, all in a mixed atmosphere of relaxation and integrity (Herold 1963, p. 1). Other researchers consider the practice dangerous, particularly when humor is used in association with serious problems, misfortune, ill-ness, or death (e.g., Runyon 1979). One approach to resolving the question of whether humorous messages stimulate greater changes in levels of audience re-sponse (McGuire 1969) may lie in investigating the impact of judiciously used humor (Monroe and Ehninger 1969, p. 232). Positive effects of the use of humor in advertising might be expected if two factors are present. First, the humor should be directly related to and well inte-grated with the objective(s) and message of the ad (i.e., the humor should contribute to the main point