The Joint Impact of Humor, Media Context and Product Type on
Advertising Effectiveness and the Moderating Role of Need for
Cognition and Need for Humor
Bernd Fabian Batke
The Effect of Humor in Advertising
The Effect of Humor in Advertising
The Joint Impact of Humor, Media Context and Product Type on
Advertising Effectiveness and the Moderating Role of Need for
Cognition and Need for Humor
November 2009
Bernd Fabian Batke (s1488023)
Kleine Rozenstraat 19A
9712TL Groningen
E-‐mail:
berndbatke@me.com
University of Groningen, Marketing
MscBA Strategic Marketing
Supervisor: Dr. Debra Trampe
Preface
I am indebted to a lot of people for this Master Thesis and the Master Degree in general, which would have been very difficult without the support, help, and patience of my family and friends. It is my privilege to express my gratitude to a number of people for their helping part in various stages of my Master Degree. First of all, I would like to thank my wonderful family (Josef, Eva, Stephanie, Jan, Kai, Carla) who have always encouraged me to work hard and who always supported me in order to achieve my goals and dreams. They give meaning to my life. I would also like to thank some of my great friends: Juliane Goettert, a fellow student, for accompanying me throughout my study. I will never forget our strong friendship and the long UB hours with her; Julian, Janos, Chris, Raphael, Vanessa, Nina, Esther, Maarten and Nicolas for providing me with tremendous source of inspiration through out my studies. I also would like to thank all the people who helped me with the Master Thesis. First, I would like to thank Dr. Debra Trampe for her support, patience and professional guidance with this thesis. It would have been difficult to achieve the goals, especially of the experimental design, without her support and constructive feedback. Moreover, I would like to thank all the 160 participants of this study and Mrs. Bocklage, who arranged the laboratory setting.
I hope that this Master Thesis will be interesting for the reader, even though the chances of laughing are very low due to its scientific nature. Humor in advertising is, in particular, a topic of interest to advertisers and they should consider the following quotation in memorable words.
“Humor in advertising is like a gun in the hands of a child. You have to know how to use it. Otherwise, it can blow up on you.” (Miller, 1992)
Management Summary
Consumers are frequently exposed to a large amount of television advertisements. In considering the many and varied effects of advertising a central issue is what type of advertisement should be used.
This research concentrates on humorous advertisements since they are a great part of advertising today. Most advertising studies about this topic show inconsistent results which suggest the need for further research. Thus, this study investigates the effectiveness of humor in advertising. Media context in which an advert is inserted and product type are hypothesized to interact with the advertisement. It is expected that humorous advertisements are more effective for low-‐risk products as those ads require less product information. In addition, this type of ad should be shown within a humorous program, as the audience desires the program to be continued i.e. a humorous ad does not interrupt the humorous program.
Previous inconsistent results could also be explained by individual differences in the participants of the studies. In this Master Thesis, two psychographic factors are hypothesized to have a moderating effect on the aforementioned interaction, namely need for cognition (NFC) and need for humor (NFH). The former deals with the way consumers collect and process information, whereas the latter represents consumers’ “sense of humor”. Low-‐NFC individuals collect less product information and process it less thoroughly than individuals high in NFC. Due to the fact that humor is an element of the ad that is often not directly related to the product features, it is expected that humor in advertising is more effective among low-‐NFC individuals. It is further assumed that high-‐NFH individuals prefer humorous ads in a humorous program because of their general behavior of seeking humor. In turn, advertized low-‐risk products are best suited for those subjects since this product type is more effective for humorous ads. Finally, a joint interplay of NFC and NFH is expected, implying that humor in advertising is more effective among those subjects low in NFC and high in NFH as both are more receptive to humor.
In order to address the research issues, a 2x2x2 factorial design was employed and responses from 160 students from a German university were examined. Advert (humorous vs. non-‐humorous), media context (humorous vs. non-‐humorous) and product type (low-‐risk vs. high-‐risk) were the three independent variables; Attitude towards the ad (AttAd), attitude towards the brand (AttBr) and purchase intention (PurIn) represented the dependent variables. Results reveal that there is a three-‐ way interaction between the three variables. As expected, the impact of humorous ads on AttBr and PurIn was more pronounced for low-‐risk products in a humorous program.
are more effective, while among high-‐NFC subjects non-‐humorous ads are associated with a higher AttBr (consistent for both program types). Regarding NFH, humorous ads have a higher impact on AttBr within a humorous program among high-‐NFH subjects compared to low-‐NFH subjects. While this is in line with expectations, the next two findings contradict them. First, humorous ads score higher on AttBr among low-‐NFH subjects within a non-‐humorous program and second, non-‐ humorous ads are in general more effective among high-‐NFH subjects. Unfortunately, the absence of a joint interplay between NFC and NFH could not shed more light on this surprising issue.
All in all, this Master Thesis concludes that humor in advertising is most effective for low-‐risk products in humorous programs. Involvement is lower for low-‐risk products because decisions are routine and lower cost and in turn, audience has a lower motivation to process product information in an advertisement and thus follow the peripheral route to persuasion. As a consequence, humor which is seen as a peripheral cue, is most effective for low-‐risk products. Regarding program, it seems that audience desires a humorous program to be continued i.e. a humorous ad within a commercial break of a humorous program. Furthermore, humorous ads are found to be superior among low-‐ (versus high) NFC subjects because they collect less information and process the advert less thoroughly i.e. they follow the peripheral route to persuasion. Surprisingly, non-‐humorous ads are superior for high-‐ (versus low) NFH subjects within both programs, which contradicts the framework of the NFH construct. The findings have practical implications for advertisers who use humorous ads. On the one hand, if a low-‐risk product is advertized, a humorous ad should be shown within a humorous program. On the other hand, in case of a high-‐risk product, a humorous ad should be inserted into a non-‐humorous program. In addition, NFC and NFH are useful as a segmentation tool. That is, market research could identify media that draws certain groups of people with relatively lower and higher levels of NFC/NFH and adjust adverts according to the findings above.
Table of contents
page
1. Introduction
8
2. Background
9
2.1 Explanation of Humor & How it Works 9
2.1.1 Cognitive Theories 9
2.1.2 Superiority Theories 10
2.1.3 Relief Theories 10
2.1.4 Facilitating Conditions 11
2.1.5 Advertising Effectiveness and Humor 11 2.2 Humor and Media Context 13
2.2.1 Context Effects 13
2.2.2 Context Effects on Humor 14
2.3 Humor and Product Type 17 2.3.1 Humor and the Elaboration Likelihood Model 17
2.3.2 Product Color Matrix (PCM) 17
2.3.3 Using Humor with Different Products 18
2.4 Humor and Audience Factors 18
2.4.1 Need for Cognition 19
2.4.2 Need for Humor 19
2.4.3 Joint Interplay of NFC and NFH 20
3. Research Questions and Hypotheses
21
4. Methodology
23
4.1 Pretests 23 4.1.1 Pretest for the Selection of TV Programs 23 4.1.2 Pretest for the Selection of Adverts 24 4.1.3 Pretest for Product Risk 24
4.2 Research Design and Participants of the Main Study 25 4.3 Procedure 26
4.4 Measurements 26
4.4.1 Perceived Humor 26
4.4.2 Perceived Product Risk 26
4.4.3 Psychographic Factors (NFC & NFH) 27
4.4.4 Dependent Measures 27
5. Results
28
5.5.2 Need for Humor as a Moderator 37 5.5.3 Joint Interplay of NFC and NFH 39
6. Conclusion
40
6.1 Management Recommendations 42 6.2 Limitations and Future Research 43
References
46
Appendices
49
Appendix A: Humor Types 49 Appendix A-‐1: Example of cognitive theory 50 Appendix A-‐2: Example of superiority theory 50 Appendix A-‐3: Example of relief theory 51
Appendix B: Advertising Studies 52 Appendix B-‐1: Media context & humor 53 Appendix B-‐2: Product type & humor 54 Appendix B-‐3: Audience factors & humor 55
Appendix C: Pretests 56
Appendix C-‐1: Program 57
Appendix C-‐2: Chocolate ads 58
Appendix C-‐3: Car ads 58
Appendix C-‐4: Product type risk 59
Appendix D: Research Questionnaire 61 Appendix D-‐1: Research Questionnaire 62
Appendix D-‐2: Short form of the need for cognition scale 66 Appendix D-‐3: Need for levity scale 67
Appendix E: Statistical Assumptions 68 Appendix E-‐1: Spread vs. level plot for AttAd, AttBr and PurIn 69 Appendix E-‐2: Tests of normality 69 Appendix E-‐3: Histograms for the eight groups (AttAd) 71 Appendix E-‐4: Histograms for the eight groups (AttBr) 72 Appendix E-‐5: Histograms for the eight groups (PurIn) 72
Appendix E-‐6: Boxplots 73
Appendix E-‐7: Correlation analysis (for AttAd, AttBr and PurIn) 73 Appendix F: Manipulation Checks 74
Appendix F-‐1: Humor 75
Appendix F-‐2: Product 76
Appendix G: MANOVA & ANOVA Results (Hypothesis I) 77 Appendix G-‐1: General Linear Model (MANOVA) 78
Appendix G-‐2: ANOVA results (for AttAd, AttBr and PurIn) 83
List of Tables
Table 1: Program/adverts (Furnham et al., 1998) 14
Table 2: Program/adverts (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002) 15
Table 3: Product Color Matrix (PCM) 18
Table 4: Manipulated independent variables 25
Table 5: Factorial design 25
Table 6: Univariate tests of homoscedasticity 29
Table 7: Comparison of original-‐ and 5% trimmed mean 31
Table 8: Mean humor evaluation scores 31
Table 9: Regression analysis of NFC, advert and program 35
Table 10: Regression analysis of NFC, advert & product 36
Table 11: Regression analysis of NFH, advert & program 37
Table 12: Regression analysis of NFH, advert & product 38
Table 13: Regression analysis of NFC, NFH & advert 39
Table 14: Summary of hypotheses 42
List of Figures
Figure 1: The Challenge Model of Humor 9
Figure 2: Integrating humor theories 11
Figure 3: Advertising effectiveness 12
Figure 4: Hypothesis I 21
Figure 5: Hypothesis II 23
Figure 6: Conceptual Model 28
Figure 7: Two-‐way interaction between advert & product 32
Figure 8: Three-‐way interaction (AttBr) 33
Figure 9: Three-‐way interaction (PurIn) 34
Figure 10: Moderating effect of NFC on program & advert 36
1. Introduction
Humor is a phenomenon that is universal to humans. Nevertheless, it is a paradox that there is so little agreement among scholars about what it is, how it operates or what to label it. A dictionary definition describes humor as “ The quality of being laughable, or comical; funniness” and “something designed to induce laughter or amusement” (American Heritage Dictionary, 1987). Researchers in advertising have long been interested in understanding the relationship between humor and advertising effectiveness. According to Sutherland and Sylvester (2000), who assert that humor remains one of the least understood elements in advertising, the main question still is if it is worthwhile for managers to use this creative element. Indeed, the use of humor in advertising remains a controversial for managers and researchers alike.
1. Humor proponents claim that humorous executions generate audience attention, increase ad memorability, and enhance ad/brand liking and persuasiveness. If an ad shows a brand’s charm or playfulness, it often resonates in the hearts and minds of the audience. Consequently, this results in positive advertising outcomes.
2. Humor opponents, however, argue that humor inadvertently draws attention to itself and away from the advertiser’s product. Moreover, due to its complexity, it engenders different responses for different individuals, is not suitable for every product type and cannot be inserted into arbitrary media programs.
With respect to this, academic studies on this subject have shown humor to have positive effects (e.g. Duncan & Nelson, 1985), mixed effects (e.g. Chattopadhyay & Basu, 1990), and no effect (e.g. Wu et al., 1989). This lack of systematic empirical results contrasts with humor’s widespread use and advertising practitioners’ view that humor enhances various measures of advertising effectiveness (Madden & Weinberger, 1984). Obviously, facing the decision to use humor in advertisement, it is still not straightforward if this creative element will enhance effectiveness. Thus, this study focuses on the question: What is the impact of humor on advertising effectiveness?
of humor. Thus, the goal of this research is to provide a clearer picture of humor’s role in advertising by examining media context and product type with possible moderating effects of audience characteristics.
2. Background
2.1 Explanation of Humor & How it Works
Gulas and Weinberger (2006) developed the Challenge Model of Humor (see figure 1). Each element will be evaluated on in the upcoming sections. However, due to a lack of previous research, a focus will be on the interaction effects of humor, media context and product type on outcomes. In this regard, possible moderating variables, namely need for humor (NFH) and need for cognition (NFC), are investigated.
Theories about humor have emerged which broadly fall into three wide categories, namely (1)
Cognitive-‐perceptual (including incongruity theories); (2) Superiority (affective-‐evaluative theories);
and (3) Relief (including psychodynamic factors). To understand the complexity of humor in advertising, these will be briefly described (see appendix A for examples).
Figure 1: The Challenge Model of Humor (adapted from Gulas & Weinberger, 2006)
2.1.1 Cognitive Theories
the incongruity-‐only proponents (Bateson, 1953; Koestler, 1964; Nerhardt, 1976). According to them, the greater divergence from expectations the funnier the material (only incongruity is sufficient to elicit humorous response). The second group believes that incongruity only accounts for some humor but that most humor necessitates resolution. Incongruity Resolution (IR) theorists such as Suls (1983) found that IR humor depends on (1) rapid resolution of the incongruity; (2) playful context with cues signifying that the ad is not to be taken serious; and (3) an appropriate mood for the listener. With respect to advertising, there is indeed a greater effect of IR compared to Incongruity-‐only based humor (Flaherty, Weinberger, & Gulas, 2004).
2.1.2 Superiority Theories
Superiority (also called disparagement) in humor deals with the social function of humor. In brief, it is about laughing at someone else. For every humorous situation there is a loser and a winner. In Gruner’s (1997) view, superiority theory is the dominant and only universal thread that is present in all humor. In the field of advertising, superiority is less common than incongruity. Speck (1987) found that 30% of television ads attempting humor used disparagement, while humorous magazine ads are found to have only 8% (Spotts, Weinberger, & Parsons, 1997).
2.1.3 Relief Theories
Figure 2: Integrating humor theories
2.1.4 Facilitating Conditions
There are five contextual cues, which make humor work. First, play signals communicate to the audience that the situation is not a serious one (McGhee, 1979). Second, humor stimulus such as surprise is related to the amount of mirth. In an advertising context, Alden and Hoyer (1993) found that surprise is the prevailing factor in determining the effect of incongruity humor. The third contextual cue is schema familiarity, which is necessary for an incongruity to lead to surprise (Alden, Mukherjee, & Hoyer, 2000). It explains why humor developed in one country works but fails in another where the audience does not know the schema. Fourth, execution receptivity refers to a predisposition toward the humor in a particular advertising. For instance, audience has become more receptive to sexual humor and more sensitive to racial humor in advertising. Fifth, arousal is important to establish a humor situation. The challenge model shows them in a circular and not sequential order due to the variety of humor forms which demand maximum flexibility in order to anticipate the conditions that can promote humor. In case these facilitating conditions cause mirth as a humor response, there are various outcomes possible. Advertising academics investigate those outcomes and refer to them as advertising effectiveness.
2.1.5 Advertising Effectiveness and Humor
Researches about attention effects of humor in advertising have found consistently positive effects. Examining actual magazine ads (Madden & Weinberger, 1982), television ads (Stewart & Furse, 1986) and radio ads (Weinberger & Campbell, 1991), humor has been found to have a positive effect on attention. The same result was shown in the laboratory (Madden, 1982; Duncan & Nelson, 1995; Wu et al., 1989). Findings are contradictory for comprehension and recognition. Several studies found humor to have a positive effect on the former (Duncan et al., 1984; Stewart & Furse, 1986; Speck, 1987; Weinberger & Campbell, 1991; Zhang & Zinkhan, 1991). Others, however, found a negative relationship between humor and comprehension (Cantor & Venus, 1980; Gelb & Zinkhan, 1986; Lammers et al., 1983). Regarding recognition, either no effect or a situational impact on only one or two product types were found (Belch & Belch, 1984; Spotts et al., 1997; Geuens & De Pelsmacker, 1998). Scholars exploring source credibility show mixed results as well. Positive results were found by four studies (McCollum & Spielman, 1982; Belch & Belch, 1984; Speck, 1987; Chattpadhyay & Basu, 1990), four indicated neutral and mixed effects (Brooker, 1981; Madden, 1982; Gelb & Pickett, 1983; Wu et al., 1989), and three found a negative relationship (Madden, 1982; Speck, 1987; Sutherland & Middleton, 1983). Thus, overall research indicates that source credibility is not enhanced by humor in advertising.
Advertising effectiveness is usually examined by the variables attitude towards the ad (hereafter AttAd), attitude towards the brand (hereafter AttBr) and purchase intention (hereafter PurIn) (Chung & Zhao, 2003). Mitchell and Olson (1981) first examined AttAd which is defined as an affective construct representing feelings of favorability/unfavorability towards the advertising. They showed that affective reactions, compared to purely cognitive reactions, are just as important with respect to audience responses to commercials. More specifically, they found a linkage between AttAd and AttBr which is supported in many other consumer studies (Belch & Belch, 1983; Gelb & Pickett, 1983; Park & Mittal, 1985; Zinkhan & Zinkhan, 1985; Zhang, 1996). This mediating role is important to the understanding of how humor works in a persuasive communication. Humor is a peripheral cue and mainly generates affective responses. This suggests that humor draws more attention to the ad and works primarily as an influencer of an affect-‐ laden ad attitude which in turn influences brand attitude through the affect transfer hypothesis (MacKenzie, Lutz, & Belch 1986). Accordingly, AttAd has a mediating role that intervenes between humor and brand attitude. Indeed, Gula’s and Weinberger’s (2006) review showed that
twelve of thirteen studies found a strong positive link between humor and AttAd. Regarding humor and AttBr evidence is also strong, with nine positive results, one no finding and two negative findings.
As far a PurIn is concerned, which is the plan to purchase a particular product or service in the future, several researchers found that humorous ads are no more effective than non-‐humorous ones (Gelb & Pickett, 1983; Belch & Belch, 1984; Gelb & Zinkhan, 1986; Zhang & Zinkhan, 1991) while others indicated that humor enhances persuasion (Chattopadhyay & Basu, 1990; Scott et al., 1990; Weinberger & Campbell, 1991; Smith, 1993).
As mentioned earlier, the effects of humor on various outcome variables are not straightforward and further investigation is required. Especially three categories of factors influence the elaboration of humor by audience (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002). First, situational factors such as media context and product type constitute two factors. The other deals with characteristics of the audience. Each will be described in turn in the following sections.
2.2 Humor and Media Context 2.2.1 Context Effects
Media context is defined as the characteristics of the content of the medium in which an ad is inserted and how the exposed persons perceive them (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002). From a managerial point of view, media context effects are essential for media planning because effectiveness of advertising might increase when embedded in the appropriate media context. Context effects on non-‐humorous ads provide some evidence of an interaction effect between program environment and commercials included within that environment (Coulter, 1998; Kamins et al., 1991; Mathur & Chattopadhyay, 1991). Goldberg and Gorn (1987) examined interaction between happy or sad TV programs and emotional or informative ads. Their results show that advertising effectiveness (recall) is stronger for viewers of the happy program compared to viewers of the sad program. This is known as the mood congruent effect. Kamins et al. (1991) also used happy and sad TV programs to induce mood. They found that a happy advertising is evaluated more positively on various measures of advertising effectiveness (ad liking and purchase intention) if placed within a happy program. Moreover, subjects evaluated sad commercials more favorably in a sad program context. Those findings are in line with the Consistency Effects Model (Kamins et al., 1991).
model. Consequently, for a happy or sad program, advertisements are evaluated favorably if the ad is not perceived as interrupting the program (“consistent effect”). In case the audience desires the program to be interrupted/continued and the ad does not supply this relief, the ad’s evaluation will be unfavorably following either happy or sad program content (“polar effect”). Hence, the findings of Kamins et al. (1991) support the “consistent effect”, in which subjects desire continuance i.e. a happy ad-‐happy program combination results in higher advertising evaluation. Thus, some types of context may be more appropriate for certain types of advertising than for others. The section below will elaborate on the issue of when subjects prefer consistency and when they do not.
2.2.2 Context Effects on Humor
With respect to humor, only few studies have focused on the interaction effect between humor and media context (see appendix B-‐1). Referring to the logic of Kamins et al. (1991), humorous ads should be more suitable in similar humorous context (consistent) than in a contrasting rational context (non-‐ consistent). Nevertheless, context effects with an emphasis on humor are contradictory. On the one hand, research found no significant effects (Cantor & Venus, 1980; Madden, 1982; Markiewicz, 1974) or only limited effects (Murphy, Cunningham, & Wilcox 1979). On the other hand, Perry et al. (1997) suggest that the more humorous a program is, the more dangerous it is to include a humorous ad in the program. They argue that those humorous ads must feature a higher level of humor than would otherwise be the case in order to be recalled after exposure to a high-‐humor program. A limitation of their study is that they only included humorous programs in their study. Thus, programs other than those involving humor should be investigated with humorous and non-‐humorous advertisements. Furnham et al. (1998) considered the above limitation in their research and examined the effects of program context on the memory of humorous TV ads. Within a 2x2 lab experimental design, six humorous and six non-‐humorous ads were placed into either humorous (comedy of 30 min) or non-‐ humorous (news of 30 min) TV programming, resulting in four conditions (see table 1):
Table 1: Program/adverts (Furnham et al., 1998)
Medium Program Type of ad Products
Humorous Vauxhall Corsa (car), Cadbury’s Chocolate Break (drinking chocolate), Abbott Ale (beer), Texaco Clean system 3 (petrol), Imperial leather mild (soap), and Roysters Big Pan popcorn
Television Humorous (“You’ve been framed”) Non-‐humorous (Early morning news) Non-‐
humorous Rowenta Aquaglide (electric iron), Domestos bleach, Phillips CDI (compact disc player), Typhoo tea, Vauxhall Frontera (car), Neurofen cold and non-‐prescription
Regarding procedure, participants were 92 adolescents aged 16 to 18 years who were randomly allocated to the four treatment conditions (see above). They were told that the experiment deals with program-‐evaluation, and the advertisements were not mentioned. The six advertisements were inserted into the centre break of each program. After watching the program and advertisement, participants responded to the questionnaire about recall and recognition. More specifically, free recall, product recognition, brand name recognition and cued recall formed the dependent variables. According to their study, both ad types are more effective (better recalled and recognized) in non-‐ humorous programming than in humorous programming. Furthermore, unaided and free recall for humorous ads was improved in the non-‐humorous program compared to the humorous program. Non-‐humorous ads also fared better in non-‐humorous programming but not to the same degree as did humorous advertisements. Generally, serious program may offer a more favorable environment for advertising as far as unaided recall is concerned. In conclusion, humor with non-‐humor is better than humor with humor.
De Pelsmacker et al. (2002) accomplished the most comprehensive results on this subject. In a 3x3 experimental design, they investigated three different types of programs and advertisements: humorous, warm feeling, and rational. In their experiment, six TV and six print ads (two humorous, two warm, two rational) were then combined in both a TV format and a print format (see table 2).
Table 2: Program/adverts (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002)
Medium Program Type of ad Products
Television Warm (travel program) Humorous (Simpsons) Rational (documentary about Egyptian pyramids) Warm Humorous Rational
Sony Handy cam Quickast food) Skoda Felicia (car)
Pampers Gamma (DIY) Vizir Ultra (cleaning)
Magazine
Warm (articles on travel
and children and photographs evoking a warm feeling)
Humorous (cartoons,
jokes, funny texts)
Rational (collection of
informative articles) Warm Humorous Rational Callebaut (chocolate) Fristi (fruit drink)
Knorr (soup) Zoviraz (pharma) Sedergine (pharma) Lipofactor (beauty)
of 314 subjects, representative of the Dutch-‐speaking population of Belgium, was selected and randomly divided into nine equal groups. Each group dealt with four contexts and four ads, namely with two TV spots and contexts and two print ads and contexts. The TV programs had a length of ten minutes, which were interrupted halfway through by an ad, whereas the 10-‐page mock magazine contained an ad on the fifth page. After each context and ad grouping, AttAd, brand recall and ad content recall were measured (dependent variables).
Product category involvement constituted a moderating factor in the study. According to De Pelsmacker et al. (2002), it is the moderating factor that accounts for previous contradictory results of other studies. An audience with low product category involvement requires less product information and devotes less attention to advertising stimuli. Thus, peripheral cues are relevant for an ad to be effective. In view of that, a congruent media context serves as a peripheral cue, activating knowledge structures and easing message elaboration (priming effect). In this case, their study found that congruent media context leads to more positive AttAd. If a person has high product category involvement, a stimulating contrast between the ad and media context stimulates this audience to process the message centrally which is intensified through the resulting perception of novelty/unexpectedness (contrast effect). Priming the associative structures is not relevant or even counterproductive. Referring this to the results of the study, advertising messages shown in congruent media context (media context and ad are similar) will be less effective than messages shown in non-‐congruent context. Nevertheless, ad content-‐ and brand recall was not influenced by the interaction between congruency and product category involvement.
Even though various researchers investigated humor and media context in advertising, none of the studies examined media context effects on different product types and psychographic factors. One important factor could be differences between low-‐risk versus high-‐risk products. Indeed, previous studies have shown an effect of medium type on the effect of ads for different products and thus, similar effects are assumed for media context (Gulas & Weinberger, 2006). In addition, there are individual differences and consumers react differently to different types of context/ad combinations. Here, the influence of need for cognition and need for humor should be explored (De Pelsmacker et al., 2002). The next two sessions elaborate on these two variables.
2.3 Humor and Product Type
2.3.1 Humor and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
It is critical for advertisers to understand how humor works in advertising. At the same time, there has been an ongoing discussion in the marketing literature how audience process information. Cacioppo and Petty (1986) developed the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) which is a model of persuasion resolving many of the inconsistencies in the literature. In this model, motivation and ability to process a message is different for the audience. Moreover, the message of the ad could be either focused on attributes of the product or on message elements that are secondary to the message. The ELM comprises two routes to persuasion. First of all, highly motivated individuals with a high ability to process information take on the central route. Second, an audience with a low motivation to process and a low ability to engage in product information use the peripheral route to persuasion. The former is matched with messages dominated by information while the latter employs peripheral cues such as humor, music or celebrities. With respect to humor in advertising, advertisers use it as a peripheral cue in low-‐motivation/low-‐ability situations (Spotts, Weinberger, & Parsons, 1997).
2.3.2 Product Color Matrix (PCM)
higher because decisions are complex and higher cost. Thus, these are ads where audience has a higher motivation or need to process information.
Table 3: Product Color Matrix (PCM)
Functional products Expressive products
White goods Red goods
High-‐risk products Insurances Business equipment Large appliances
Jewelry Motorcycle Sports car
Blue goods Yellow goods
Low-‐risk products Detergents Motor oil and gas Non-‐dessert foods
Snacks and candy Desserts
Alcohol
2.3.3 Using Humor with Different Products
Few humor studies have examined the effects of humor with different products (see appendix B-‐2). Though previous research indicates that higher risk red and white products generally have the lowest levels of humor usage, while lower risk yellow and blue products have the highest. Moreover, humor is most often used for yellow goods and least often for red goods in radio, magazine and TV advertising (Gulas & Weinberger, 2006). This is in line with the ELM framework because yellow goods are suited for a low-‐involvement audience, where consumers spend little time seeking information. Their advertisement could be simple and humor could be effective. At the opposite, red goods are high-‐involvement products and audience with a high-‐involvement seeks specific information on the product per se.
Again, only few studies have explicitly studied the impact of humor with different products and thus more research in this field is needed (Gulas & Weinberger, 2006). More specifically, a final assumption is that product type interacts with humor and media context on advertising effectiveness. In particular, low-‐risk products, which require less product information, are best suited for humorous ads (peripheral cue) and thus, should be inserted into a humorous program (priming
effect).
2.4 Humor and Audience Factors
focus will be on the latter as few studies have dealt with the effect of individual differences in the advertising humor literature (Zhang, 1996).
2.4.1 Need for Cognition
The advertising humor literature shows inconsistent results which could potentially be attributable to inherent individual differences in the participants of the studies. More specifically, there are systematic individual differences among people in their desire to engage in issue-‐relevant thinking when they form their attitudes (Cacioppo et al., 1986). Cacioppo and Petty (1982) named this conceptualization of such a desire need for cognition (NFC). It is defined as “an individuals tendency to engage in and enjoy cognitive endeavors”. NFC can be illustrated in the context of the ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Accordingly, individuals high in NFC follow the central rather than the peripheral route to persuasion (Geuens & De Pelsmacker, 2002). Thus, they collect more information and process it more thoroughly than individuals low in NFC. Humor has often been employed as a peripheral cue in advertisements which is an element of the ad that is not directly related to the product features. When the peripheral route is invoked under low-‐NFC conditions, the presence of likable cues such as humor impacts persuasion, whereas under high-‐NFC conditions, the quality of the argument, not humor, influences persuasion. In fact, this is what was found by Zhang (1996). He tested a humorous and a non-‐humorous print ad containing weak or strong arguments for a fictitious brand. His findings suggest that humor only mattered for low-‐NFC individuals and the strengths of the message argument only for the high-‐NFC audience. Geuens and De Pelsmacker (2002), however, found no significant interaction between NFC and humor. According to their study, humor seems to have a uniformly positive impact on both low-‐ and high-‐NFC individuals which contradicts the findings of Zhang (1996). Given the mixed findings, the question remains if humor is effective in persuading high-‐NFC individuals (see appendix A-‐3). Thus, individual differences in NFC appear to be an area where additional research is required. Accordingly, this study investigates possible moderating effects of NFC on humor, media context and product type. Congruent media context operates as a peripheral cue (priming effect). Low-‐NFC subjects are more receptive to peripheral cues like humor and require less product information, and in this case it is assumed that humor works best for low-‐risk products in a humorous program.
2.4.2 Need for Humor
humor, internal whimsy, and external whimsy) play a role in defining an individual’s overall need for levity. Internal humor is the need to generate humor, while external humor is the need to experience humor from external sources. Those two dimensions represent the humor portion of the measure, called need for humor (NFH). Cline, Altsech, and Kellaris (2003) found that an individual’s NFH plays a significant role in moderating responses to humorous advertising. In particular, results indicate that consumers high in NFH form more favorable attitudes toward humorous ads, but also may reveal less favorable attitudes to ads with lower levels of humorous content (see appendix B-‐3).
With respect to humor, media context and product type, it is further assumed that high-‐NFH subjects prefer humorous advertising in a humorous program due to their general behavior of seeking humor. Accordingly, low-‐risk products are most effective for those subjects because as mentioned earlier, low-‐risk products are suited best for humorous ads. So in particular two audience factors moderate the role of humor on advertising effectiveness. Consequentially, there is a possible relationship between NFC and NFH on the effects of humorous ads. As individual’s NFC affects motivation to process an ad, it should influence the moderating role of NFH.
2.4.3 Joint Interplay of NFC and NFH
Cline, Altsech, and Kellaris (2003) investigated this joint interplay of NFC and NFH on humorous advertising effectiveness. Their research reports information on how NFC and NFH relate. That is, the moderating role of NFH on the effect of humor on AttAd is more pronounced among individuals with lower NFC. On the one hand, high-‐NFC individuals, who use systematic processing, tend to focus on the arguments of an ad. In turn, their need for humor is blocked and they do not process peripheral humor. On the other hand, low-‐NFC individuals use heuristic processing with humor as a peripheral cue. In the presence of high-‐NFH attitudes, subjects respond more positively to humorous ads. Thus, those low in NFC and high in NFH respond more favorably to a humorous ad than those high in NFC and low in NFH.
This research is the only present research, investigating the joint effects of NFC and NFH on the humor-‐ad effectiveness relationship and various questions remain unresolved. As mentioned above,
do audience factors such as NFH and NFC influence other variables such as media context and product type? Furthermore, how and to what extent are NFH and NFC interrelated? As mentioned
