The Use and Effect of Humor in Different Advertising Media

It has been said there are few golden rules in life or in advertising. However, to quote a wise executive, "A blind pig may sometimes find truffles, but it helps if he forages in an oak forest" (Ogilvy and Raphaelson, 1982). The modest objective of this study is to understand where the oak forest has been for humor and to determine whether all the dollars being spent have been turning up truffles. The objective is not to develop the elusive golden rule but to know more about what has been done in the past and where success and failure have been most common in the use of humor.The approach is to study humor by combining results from studies of TV, radio, and magazines into a common product contingency framework. The data combines analysis of the frequency of humor usage for all three media as well as an analysis of the impact of humorous radio and magazine ads using syndicated industry recall data. The result provides a better understanding of the contingent use of humor in different product groupings and in different media as well as insight about the importance of the relatedness of humor to the product and the relative effects of humor on attention and comprehension.