Humour and information appeals in online advertisements
Michel van Dijck 11406593
Master Thesis
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme Communication Science Dr. Anne Kranzbühler
Abstract
This research studies the effectiveness of humour and information appeals on attitude towards the ad and sharing intentions in online advertisements. Additionally, it examines whether this effect is moderated by product type. This study aims to fill the existing gaps in the literature regarding a comparison of the effects of humour appeals to rational appeals and to study whether product type moderates the effect of appeals on sharing intentions. A 2x2 between-subjects experimental design method is used to measure these effects. Shampoo and car are considered as low and high involvement products, respectively. In total 138
participants, living in the Netherlands had partaken in this study. The results show that humour appeals had a more positive effect on both attitude towards the ad and sharing intentions. Moreover, for low involvement products, humour was also found to be more effective than information appeals in terms of their effect on attitude towards the ad. No statistical differences were found for high involvement products. Similarly, product type did not moderate the effect of appeals on sharing intentions. This research has provided several valuable insights of advertising appeals for practitioners and academics with regards to online advertisements.
Key words: Online advertisements – humour appeals – information Appeals – sharing intentions – advertising attitude
Introduction
With the rapid growth in the number of Internet users on a global scale, the world wide web has developed to be the quickest rising advertising medium in this decade (Ha, 2012). Market research figures have shown that revenues from online advertising in the United States have grown from $8.1 billion in 2000 to $21.2 billion in 2007 (Evans, 2009), suggesting that there is an increasing importance in online advertising. Furthermore, a recent report by the Global web index (2014) revealed that people are spending more time on online rather than
traditional forms of media on a daily basis. Additionally, the prominent market data provider Statista (2018), determined that in the United States, revenues are predicted to exceed the $100 billion mark in 2018. These developments illustrate the importance of online
advertising, given that it is possible to target a vast number of customers through its global reach.
In spite of altered methods of Internet communication – video or searched
advertisements (online ads that are targeted to match keywords in search engine queries) – online display ads remain an important advertising composition. To date, online display ads account for approximately 41 per cent of mobile and desktop ads (IAB, 2017). Several empirical studies on online display advertisements and consumers’ responses estimated a 1 per cent click through rate (Dreze & Hussherr 2003), suggesting a low level of effectiveness. However, measuring click through rate as a response measure may underrate these online display ads (Dreze & Hussherr 2003) as exposure to these ads has been associated with non-behavioural consumer responses such as increase in brand awareness as well as brand preference (Briggs & Hollis 1997). Currently, the most rapidly developing behaviour on social media is content sharing (Nelson-Field, Riebe & Newstead, 2013). This growth is partly due to the progression of social media itself, as well as the rise of the ‘Connection generation’, which is believed to be the desire to connect to and interact with a large network
(Pintado, 2009). Through a direct response to an advertisement, consumers are able to voice themselves via web-based channels and share information or content, within their social network to multiple receivers. According to Allsop, Bassett and Hoskins (2007), 59% of people reported to share online content with others on a regular basis. Hence, online display advertisements can spread at a rapid rate to a large number of consumers (Taylor, Strutton, & Thompson, 2013). From a marketer’s perspective, this development offers the opportunity to spread content across a vast group of people deprived of the costs that come with the
distribution of content through traditional form of media, such as television (Nelson-Field, Riebe & Newstead, 2013).
One of the main goals of advertisements is to reach potential customers and influence their attitudes. An important aspect, which advertisers need to cover in order to be successful, is to grasp an understanding of the process which consumers go through prior to purchasing a product and to identify the relevant symbols which can be used within the message in the ads (Arens, 1996). As practitioners progressively pursue to increase their communication
effectiveness, the choice of type of advertising appeal used for certain products and target groups requires more thorough considerations (MacKenzie, Lutz & Belch, 1986). Albers-Miller and Royne Stafford (1999) identify two types of appeals that are apparent within advertisements namely, rational and emotional appeals. The authors propose that it originates from Copeland’s (1924) suggestion that one purchases products based on either rational or emotional reasoning. Rational appeals focus on the logical thinking process of the consumers, where the functional needs and the assessable benefits and qualities of a product or brand hold a vital role. By contrast, emotional appeals are substantially directed at the
psychological, social and symbolic needs of the consumer and aim to evoke a psychological response (Leonidou & Leonidou, 2009). Examples of emotional appeals comprise of joy, love and humour (Albers-Miller & Royne Stafford, 1999).
The use of humour appeals in advertising has become more common. In current time, about one in five televised ads include humorous appeals (Beard 2005). Despite humour being such a commonly used appeal, current studies have not compared its effectiveness to other appeals. Moreover, the comparison of effectiveness of appeals on low and high involvement products is not extensive. More specifically, incorporating humour appeals in such a comparative study remains to be conducted (Akbari, 2015). Furthermore, no current literature has examined the effect of product involvement on intention to share.
Compared to traditional forms of media such as tv, radio and print, online
advertisements are more relevant to consumers (Ducoffe, 1996). Online consumers have the tendency to perceive the ads to be related to them or useful in attaining their needs (MacInnis and Jaworshi 1989). Through empirical studies, Dahlen (2002) suggests that online
advertising is better suited for low involvement products than traditional forms of media, as the web offers more stimuli and therefor can hold the consumer’s attention and interest longer. Moreover, Kwon et. al (2018) state that the focus of current research lies on traditional media and its effectiveness whereas the online settings is subject of restricted research, suggesting that further investigation is required to draw firm conclusions on its effectiveness.
This has resulted in the following research questions:
How do humour and information appeals affect attitude towards the ad and sharing
intentions of online advertisements and to what extent are these effects moderated by product type? To what extent is intention to share mediated by attitude towards the ad?
Theoretical framework
Appeals in advertisements and consumer responses
Persuasive messages in advertisements contain at least one appeal which, desirably creates an attitudinal effect and/or causes a behavioural response from the targeted consumer (Holmes & Crocker, 1987). Advertising appeals have been defined by Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) as the use of a psychological motivating power by the supplier to provoke customers’ desire and create a behavioural response while delivering signs to alter the receivers’
perceptions of the product or brand. Essentially an appeal is considered to be a persuasive expression; it can either be targeted towards emotion or logic (Holmes & Crocker, 1987). With regards to the latter, such an approach is premeditated to alter the customer’s beliefs about the advertised brand, through messages that express numerous argumentations
specifying why the attainment of the product or service will benefit the customer (Holmes & Crocker, 1987; Kotler & Armstrong, 1994). The use of this appeal originates from
conventional processing models of decision making where consumers supposedly base their decisions on logic and rationality (Kotler & Armstrong, 1994). Accordingly, cognitive appeals are frequently referred to as rational appeals. By contrast, emotional appeals are based on the emotional and experiential aspects of consumption. Their goal entails to
stimulate positive feelings towards the product or service by creating a likeable brand, being dependant on feelings for effectiveness in their advertisements (Albers-Miller & Royne Stafford, 1999). Emotional appeals stimulate either an instantaneous emotional response (i.e. fear, laughter) or consequently generate hedonism accompanied with purchase (Holmes & Crocker, 1987). Sharing intentions with regards to ads remains to be far less researched. Additionally, the vast majority of studies on sharing intentions of advertisements, revolve around video ads. The study of online display ads in this context remains to be a significant gap, whereas it is an important topic as it could be a goal of this type of advertisement.
Concerning the effectiveness on attitude of these appeals, there has been a
disagreement amongst scholars. Holbrook (1978) holds that informational content is more reliable, which results in more positive beliefs regarding the advertisement. Similarly, other scholars argue that advertisements containing rational appeals contain more information as compared to emotional ads, consequently resulting in more positive attitudes towards the ad (Aaker & Norris, 1982; Golden & Jognson, 1983). By contrast, Chung and Zhao (2003), opine that the use of emotional appeals positively affects ones’ attitude towards the
advertisements. More recently, research revealed on advertising appeals revealed that overall, appeals positively affect the viewers attitude towards the advertisement. To elaborate,
rational appeals showed to be more effective compared to emotional appeals (Lin, 2011). This is due to the fact that rational appeals deliver information which is directly associated with the product and offer it in an explicit manner. Thus, it is easier to draw the attention of the customer and consequently create a more positive attitude towards the advertisement (Aaker & Norris, 1982). Based on the literature discussed above, the following hypothesis has been determined:
H1: Information appeals have a stronger effect on attitude towards the ad than humour
appeals
When looking specifically at the appeals, research indicates that content which induces the triggering of emotions is more likely to be shared (Berger & Milkman, 2012). Similarly, Dobele et al. (2007) hold that it is the emotions and the magnitude in which they are experienced by the viewer that elicit the sharing of content. Moreover, the authors determined that for the majority, sharing behaviour occurs shortly after the consumer experiences the emotional response. Furthermore, they hold that the extent to which the content is shared, is directly related to the degree in which the emotions are experienced. In
other words, the stronger the emotions are felt, the more people the content is shared with. Porter and Golan (2006) add that humour is considered to be the universal appeal that causes content to go viral (circulated rapidly to vast number of people). Nelson-field, Riebe and Newstead (2013) concluded that in order to maximize the chances of virality, the content should aim to elicit a strong emotional reaction, regardless of the tone of the message. On the other hand, informational content has also been associated with sharing behaviour. More specifically, consumers may want to help others and share useful information for selfless purposes or to improve their own image by appearing to be knowledgeable (Wojnicki & Godes, 2008). Moreover, concrete helpful content may be shared with the intention to generate an exchange of information (Fehr, Kirchsteiger, and Riedl, 1998). Grounded on these findings it can be said that advertisements containing emotional or rational appeals can both stimulate sharing intentions. However, given that for the majority there is a consensus in the literature on advertisements, believing that the triggering of emotional responses is what creates content to go viral, this study hypothesizes the following:
H2: Humour appeals have a stronger effect on intention to share than information appeals
As mentioned earlier, numerous studies on sharing intentions of advertisements hold that content that elicits an emotional response is more likely to shared. There appears to be a disagreement amongst scholars regarding this subject matter. Eckler and Bolls (2011) believe that only a positive attitude towards an ad can facilitate the intention to share it with others. On the contrary, Anderson (1998) not only shares this belief but adds that one can expect a larger intention to share when an extreme of satisfaction occurs (i.e. high degree of
satisfaction or high degree of dissatisfaction).
Based on cognitive response model Huang, Su, Zhou and Liu (2013), concluded that when one’s attitude towards the ad is positive it can have a direct effect on their sharing
intentions. Such a link has also been established in earlier studies. According to Phelps et al. (2003), the sharing of emails is similarly related to advertising content. More specifically, merely information that arouses a strong emotional response is likely to be shared.
This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3: The effect of humour and information appeals on sharing is mediated by consumers’
attitude towards the ad.
The moderating role of product type: High vs Low involvement
In order to optimize the effectiveness of appeals, they should be matched with the appropriate product type (Lepkowska-White, Brashear & Weinberger, 2003). Specifically, Johar and Sirgy (1991) believe that regarding high involvement products, such as high-technology customer goods, rational appeals are more effective. Whereas for low involvement products, including convenience products which are considered to be value-expressive, emotional appeals within advertisements are more applicable.
Petty and Cacioppo (1986), in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), suggest that persuasion can follow two different routes: central and peripheral. The former route requires one to use cognitive capacity to process the advertising message, whereas the latter arises in the case of a lack of cognitive elaboration for the persuasive messages. Linking this process to the product type, it is believed that in the context of high involvement products, one is more likely to have the incentive for issue-relevant thinking and increase their ‘elaboration likelihood’. Thus, one is more prone to stimulate the use of the central route. When linking processing of information through the central route, attitudinal change occurs as an outcome of the consumer thoroughly considering all the presented information that is believed to be essential (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986), whereby the receiver must also be prepared to participate in elaborate issue-relevant thinking (O’Keefe, 2008). By contrast, for low involvement
products one is less inclined to process information, leading to a larger probability of using the peripheral route (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Under this particular condition, receivers are not involved in a thorough deliberation of the arguments presented in the persuasive message. Moreover, one is likely to use heuristic beliefs when using the peripheral route, resulting in a decision-making process that requires little information to be persuaded (O’Keefe, 2008). Consequently, one can expect that a humour appeal within an advertisement will function as a peripheral cue and therefore being more applicable to low involvement products as
compared to high involvement products. For example, a viewer is less likely to absorb information concerning a low involvement product, and by consequence is more prone to form an attitude towards the advertisement positioned by the peripheral cues. In particular, humour appeals in advertisements are less probable to influence a consumer seeking high involvement products as they are determined to utilize cognitive capacity for this type of product and using the central route. Hence it can be expected that rational appeals may be more effective for high involvement products.
Chung and Zhao (2003) discovered that humour appeals in advertisements positively affects one’s attitude towards the ad, emphasizing that the effect appeared to be considerably stronger within low involvement products as compared to high involvement products.
However, in this research the effect was not compared to other appeals. Similarly, Akbari (2015) holds that both rational and emotional appeals have a positive effect on attitude towards the ad. More specifically, emotional appeals have a stronger effect on attitude towards the ad than rational appeals for low involvement products. Conversely, rational appeals have a stronger effect on attitude towards the ad than emotional appeals regarding high involvement products. Taking all points in to consideration, the following hypotheses are proposed:
H4: Humour appeals have a stronger effect on attitudes towards the ad than information
appeals for low involvement products
H5: Informational appeals have a stronger effect on attitudes towards the ad than humour
appeals for high involvement products
Within the current literature, no research has been conducted analysing whether the level of involvement of a product has an effect on sharing intentions. As mentioned prior, positive attitudes towards the ad can directly positively effect ones sharing intentions (Huang et al., 2013). Taking in to consideration that attitude towards the ad has shown to be a determinant of sharing, it is expected that the moderating effect of product involvement on attitudes towards the ad (see hypotheses above) has the same directional effect as intention to share. That is, humour appeals having a stronger effect for low involvement products and
information appeals having a stronger effect for high involvement products. Based on these arguments, the following hypothesis has been determined:
H6: Humour appeals have a stronger effect on sharing intentions for low involvement
products whilst information appeals have a stronger effect for high involvement products on sharing intentions
The conceptual model for this research is as follows: Figure1 Rational appeal: Informational Emotional appeal: Humour Intention to share Low/high involvement products Attitude towards the ad
Methodology
Research design
In order to analyse the relationship between the selected variables, a quantitative study with an experimental 2 x 2 between subjects design is conducted. The experiment consists of four conditions, exploring the effects of humour appeals and information appeals on attitude towards the ad and intention to share. The factors within this experiment include a rational appeal (information) and an emotional appeal (humour). Additionally, the appeals are used within online advertisements of the high involvement product category (car) as well as low involvement (shampoo). The data is collected digitally in the form of an online survey, created with the use of Qualtrics.
Sampling
With the intention to gather as many respondents in the Netherlands as possible, the data was collected amongst individuals with the only requirement of them being an adult. However, the respondents were not equally distributed with regards to their age, thus limiting the generalizability of this research and therefore affects the external validity of this study.
As this study focuses on the general public, a simple random sample has been chosen to the acquire the data. Additionally, a convenience data sampling method was chosen by seeking for respondents within personal network. Subsequently, a snowball effect occurred as participants were asked to suggest or share the survey link with others who meet the
requirements of this research. Participants were contacted either through email, social networking sites/groups and through personal face-to-face contact.
With regards to the number of participants needed for this experimental study, it is believed that at least 30 participants are required per condition. Considering there are four conditions in total, a minimum of 120 participants is believed to be appropriate for this
research. It should be noted that this given number excludes the number of participants required for the pre-test.
Stimuli
This study used 2 visually identical ads, including one for a high involvement product (car) and low involvement product (shampoo). For each advertised product, the respective appeals (humour and informational) were presented in the form of a text (see appendix). This was done to ensure that the effect on the dependent variables is solely based the appeals as the text is the only difference between the used ads for each product. To sum up, there were a total of four stimuli used in this study including the following: a car ad with humour appeal (Appendix A), a car ad containing informational appeal (Appendix B), a shampoo ad including humour appeal (Appendix C) and lastly a shampoo ad accompanied with informational appeal (Appendix D).
Pre-test
Prior to the data collection process for this experiment, a pre-test was conducted. This was done, to examine whether the advertisements used in the experiment - containing the humour and informational appeals - are perceived in the manner in which they are intended to be. Participants were presented with the advertisements used for each of the conditions and were treated as a within subject test. After viewing each respective advertisement, participants were asked to evaluate the presence of a total of eight appeals, which have been identified in the literature (Akbari, 2015; Albers-Miller & Royne Stafford, 1999; Holmes & Crocker, 1987) In the form of a 7-point Likert scale, whose bipolar anchors were very present and not present, participants indicated to what extent they perceived each appeal to be present in the viewed advertisements.
In total, the sample obtained for the pre-test, consisted of 31 participants. The
participants of the pre-test were purposely only approached to take part in the pre-test and not in the experiment as they are exposed to all the advertisements used in the pre-test. It is believed that if a participant has seen all the used stimuli, it could influence their responses in the experiment and decrease the significance of this research.
Operationalization of variables Attitude towards the ad
The measurement of the dependent variable - attitude towards the ad - was based on previous work by Muehling and McCann (1993). The authors’ measurement included a 7-point Likert scale including the following anchors: bad/good, dislike/like, not interesting/interesting, irritating/not irritating and not convincing/convincing. The overall mean score generated across these previously listed anchors determined the participants’ attitude towards the ad.
A principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the 7-item form a unidimensional scale. As one component has an eigen-value that is above 1 (3.50), all items positively
correlate with the component. The item “The advertisement above is good”, had the strongest correlation (0.92). The item “The advertisement above is not irritating”, had the weakest correlation (0.56). Thus, the items appear to measure the independent variable ‘attitude towards the advertisement’. This scale was found to be reliable with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.89. The item “The item above is not irritating” could be removed to increase scale
reliability of Cronbach’s alpha to 0.92. However, removing an item would negatively affect validity. Considering the already high reliability value, it was chosen to keep the item in the scale. The variance in the first component accounted for 70.0% of total variance for ‘attitude towards the ad’.
Intention to share
A scale used by Sohn (2009) served as a basis to measure the variable intention to share. The bipolar anchors included unlikely/likely, improbably/probably and impossible/possible. The overall accumulated mean score of the three measurements account for the participants’ intention to share. Similar to the measurement of the variable attitude towards the ad, intention to share was also measured on a 7-point scale to ensure accurate and fair comparisons between the variables.
A principal component analysis (PCA) showed that the 7-item form a unidimensional scale. As one component has an eigen-value that is above 1 (2.79), all items positively correlate with the component. The item “It is probable that I would share the advertisement above with someone”, had the strongest correlation (0.98). The item “It is possible that I would share the advertisement above with someone”, had the weakest correlation (0.95). Thus, the items seem to measure the independent variable ‘intention to share’. This scale was found to be very reliable with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.96. The reliability of the scale could not be improved by removing any item.
Results
Before looking at how appeals in advertisements affect the attitude towards the ad and intention to share the ad, the descriptive results of the sample of this experiment are reported along with the results of the pre-test.
In total, the sample consisted of 138 participants. After removing the incomplete responses from the dataset, 128 valid responses were recorded. In the recorded sample, 50.8% were male (N=66) and 49.2% were female (N=64). The age of the sample varied between 18 and 69 (M = 26.88, SD = 8.66).
Pre-test
The initial collected data from the pre-test included a total of 31 responses, some of which were incomplete. After removing the incomplete responses, a total of 27 completed responses remained.
Information appeal & low involvement product
Within the collected responses, 96% of respondents had identified the correct appeal for the first advertisement. Moreover, information appeal received the highest average score (M=5.56, SD=1.601) and scored significantly higher than the second highest ranked appeal, quality (M=2.74, SD= 1.32).
Humour appeal & low involvement product
In the sample, 100% of the responses identified the correct appeal for the second ad. Additionally, humour received the highest score (M=6.67, SD=0.555) and received a considerably higher average rating than the second highest graded appeal, joy (M=2.96, SD=1.97).
Humour appeal & high involvement product
Similar to the previous appeal, 100% of respondents identified had identified the correct appeal for the third ad. Furthermore, humour was perceived as the most present appeal (M=6.26, SD=1.163) followed by guilt with a substantial difference (M=2.63, SD=1.864). Information appeal & high involvement product
Finally, 100% of the respondents identified the correct appeal for this last advertisement. Moreover, information received the highest presence score out of all appeals (M=6.74, SD=0.656) and received a higher average score than the second highest ranked appeal, quality (M=3.59, SD=1.986).
All in all, regarding all the used ads in this research, the correct appeal received the highest mean score. Thus, the results of the pre-test prove that all ads are perceived by
participants as they are intended to be. The remaining analyses in this section of this research paper concerns the findings of the main study. In the following part, all the previously
determined hypotheses will be tested.
Attitude towards the ad
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare attitude towards the advertisement in humour and information appeals. There was a significant difference in the scores for humour appeals (M=4.67, SD=1.28) and information appeal (M=3.86, SD=1.38) conditions; t (126) = 3.40, p = 0.001. These results suggest that appeals in advertising do affect one’s attitude towards the ad. Specifically, these results suggest attitude towards the advertisement was stimulated more by humour compared to information appeals. Based on these findings, H1 is rejected.
Intention to share
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare intention to share the advertisement in humour and information appeals. There was a significant difference in the scores for humour appeals (M=3.83, SD=1.80) and information appeal (M=1.96, SD=1.25) conditions; t (126) = 6.91, p > 0.001. These results suggest that appeals in advertising do affect one’s intention to share. Specifically, these results suggest that intention to share the ad was stimulated more by humour than information appeals. Based on these findings, H2 is accepted.
Mediation Analysis – Attitude towards the ad Figure 2
A process macro analysis was conducted to assess the whether the effect of humour and informational appeals on intention to share is mediated by attitude towards the ad. The mediation analysis was conducted using a method by Hayes (2013). More specifically, for this specific study the Model 4 was used, presented with the findings in the figure above. Figure 2 illustrates that the indirect effect of appeals on sharing intentions, through attitude towards the ad, was significant (β = 0.53, t(125) = 5.85, p < 0.001). Moreover, it was found that appeals have a significant effect on attitude towards the ad (β = 0.81, t(126) = 3.40, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the results show that the mediator, attitude towards the ad, also had a significant effect on intention to share (β = 1.44, t(125) = 5.73, p < 0.001). Finally, the direct effect between appeals and intention to share the ad (β = 1.87, t(126) = 6.91, p < 0.001) remained to be significant. Thus, these results suggest that sharing intention is partially mediated by attitude towards the ad. By means of this analysis it can be concluded that H3 is accepted.
0.81*** 1.44***
Attitude towards the ad
Appeals Intention to share
Direct effect: 1.87*** Total effect: 5.85***
Moderation Analysis – Product type
In order to test whether the effect of humour and information appeals on attitude towards the ad was moderated by product type, a univariate ANOVA test was conducted. The results suggest that the interaction effect between appeal and involvement is marginally significant (F(1,3) = 3,61, p = 0.06). More specifically, when looking at the differences between the appeals in relation to the particular product types, a significant difference was found between humour and information appeals in low involvement product ads (p < 0.001). Bonferroni post hoc tests revealed that for low involvement products, humour appeals had a stronger effect on attitude towards the ad. Based on these findings, H4 is accepted. The difference between humour and information appeals within high involvement products was found not to be significant. Thus, based on these results, H5 is rejected.
Similarly, to measure whether product type moderated the effect of humour and information appeals on sharing intentions, a univariate ANOVA test was done. The results suggest that the interaction effect between the appeals and involvement of the product was not significant (F(1,3) = 1,19, p = 0,28). On the basis of these findings, H6 is rejected.
Discussion
Overall the results of this research revealed that for online advertisements, humour seems to be more effective than informational appeals. Regarding the effects of the measured appeals, humour proved to be more effective than information for both attitude towards the ad as well as intention to share the ad. Moreover, the effects of appeals on sharing intentions was partially mediated by attitude towards the ad. Thus, other factors that have not been included in this research might also explain this effect. Finally, the product type (high and low
involvement products. This was not the case for high involvement products. Finally, product type also did not moderate the effect on sharing intentions.
Contrary to what was expected, humour appeals were found to be more effective than information appeals in terms of their influence on attitude towards the ad. The results show that there is a significant difference between the two appeals. These findings are not in line with earlier conducted studies, which argue that rational appeals are have a stronger effect on attitude towards the ad than emotional appeals (Aaker & Norris, 1982; Golden & Johnson, 1983). The difference in findings can partially be explained through the fact that they did not use humour as emotional appeal. First of all, it should be noted that in current literature, the effects of humour on attitude towards the ad have not been compared to rational appeals. Additionally, it is a common belief amongst practitioners that humour is most effective for younger and well-educated consumers (Madden & Weinberger 1984). The sample of this research had a relatively young average age, due to the fact that the majority of participants consisted of university student. Considering that the sample substantially consists of
university students, it may be assumed that the sample is well educated. Madden and Weinberger (1984) hold that when a sample consists of students, a higher degree of
appreciation and stronger effects of humour on attitude towards the ad are expected. These results could arguably have supported the established hypothesis, had the sample contained a wider variety of participants and not represent a student sample. These findings suggest that the effect of emotional appeals differ between various age ranges. Similar to this research, Chung and Zhao (2003) hold that humour positively effects attitude towards the ad. However, their research does not compare humour appeals to altering appeals. Therefore, it can be said that this research builds on the findings that humour appeals positively effect one’s attitude and adds that it is more effective than information appeals (rational) within a student sample.
Secondly, when comparing humour and information appeals and their effects on intention to share, the results indicate that that humour was more effective. These findings support earlier conducted studies, which argue that the triggering of emotions and extent to which they are experienced, causes the behaviour of sharing content (Berger & Milkman, 2012; Dobele et al., 2007). The evidence suggest that emotional appeals will have a stronger effect on sharing intentions, compared to rational appeals, which is confirmed in this
research. Moreover, Porter and Golan (2006) hold that humour is universally regarded as the appeal that instigates sharing of content. Findings of this research revealed a significant larger sharing intention for humorous ads, compared to informational ads.
Thirdly, the findings of this research suggest that intention to share the ad is partially mediated by attitude to the ad. Similar to this research, previously conducted studies argued that a positive attitude towards the ad stimulates sharing intentions (Eckler & Bolls, 2011; Huang, Su, Zhou & Liu, 2013). Furthermore, results of this study only established a partial mediation effect. Thus, the findings suggest that there are other factors that could explain the intention to share the ad. Based on these findings, it can be said that attitude towards the ad accounts for some, but not all of the relationship between appeals and sharing intentions.
Fourthly, results regarding the moderating effect of product type revealed some interesting findings. Based on the findings on this research, it was determined that for low involvement products, humour appeals had a significantly stronger effect on attitude towards the ad than information appeals. This is in line with earlier studies conducted by Akbari (2015), who found emotional appeals to be more effective for low involvement products. However, the research measured altering emotional appeals and did not make these conclusions based on humour as emotional appeal. Moreover, other findings proved that humour positively affects attitude towards the ad and complements this by adding that the effect is enhanced when link to low involvement products (Chung & Zhao, 2003). In their
research however, humour is the only appeal that is being measured. Thus, there were no comparisons made with other appeals regarding their effectiveness. The hypothesis tested in this study, was partially built on the findings of the previously mentioned studies.
By contrast, the findings of this study regarding these effects for high involvement products are not conform with earlier established conclusions (Akbari, 2015). Contrary to what was expected, no significant differences were found between humour and information appeals regarding their effectiveness for attitude towards the ad for high involvement
products. Interestingly, in their research, Akbari (2015) clearly state that the results may only confine to Iran, as this is where the study has been conducted. Moreover, it is argued that cultural factors may illustrate the sample, suggesting that results may alter when conducted in a country with dissimilar cultural values. Additionally, the author suggest that subject may respond differently to persuasive messages delivered through a different medium. As
previously mentioned, Madden and Weinberger (1984) suggest that humour appeals are most effective for students. Arguably, the enhanced effect of humorous appeals may have caused for a surprisingly stronger effect on attitude towards the ad for high involvement products, causing a non-significant moderation effect for this product type.
Fifthly, results showed that product type did not moderate the effect of appeals on sharing intentions. Considering the directional effect was believed to be similar to attitude towards the ad, which was only marginally significant. It is not completely unexpected that product type also does not moderate the effect on sharing intentions. There is no literature that has examined the effects of product types on sharing intentions. Thus, one is unable to confirm nor reject whether this is a common finding. However, earlier conducted research has determined that humour is universally considered to be the appeal that causes content to go viral (Porter & Golan, 2006), it may be suggested that product type simply does not affect sharing intentions due to the substantially larger effect of appeals. As this relationship has not
been addressed in earlier research, these findings give new insights and contributions to the research field of appeals in online advertising, product type and sharing intentions.
Finally, there are some practical implications that should be considered based on this research. Despite humour as an appeal that is included in more than half of all American advertisements (Burnett et al., 1987), it remained to be an appeal that had not been researched in the scope and context of this study. The findings of this research provide useful insights for online advertisers and the development of their strategies. Unlike traditional forms of media -such as TV and radio – product type did not appear to play an as important role for
influencing receivers’ attitude towards the ad and sharing intentions in online advertisements. This does not suggest that practitioners should not consider linking the most appropriate appeal with product type. However, it is suggested that the choice of appeal should carefully be considered as they play a more influential role. Emotional appeals, more specifically humour, are highly effective in online advertisements, particularly when targeting students. As regulations regarding televised ads are much stricter than other forms of media (Ariño, 2007), advertisers can incorporate more extreme humorous ads. Creating strategies based on such a high degree of detail will stimulate more positive attitudes towards the advertisements and potentially lead to high degree of circulation of the ads, which ultimately leads to a greater degree of advertising effectiveness.
Limitations and future recommendations
Some limitation within this research have been identified, which offer opportunities in future research. First, it was intended to include a broad range of subjects, which would represent the Dutch population. However, the obtained sample for the majority consisted of students, not supporting any larger generalizations about the desired population. However, as not all the findings support what is argued in the majority of current literature, appeals and their
effectiveness may alter between various demographic groups. Future research could be conducted comparing various age groups. Obtaining such results would significantly help practitioners creating advertisement targeting specific customer segments. For mass marketed products, such findings are far less relevant.
Second, due to this specific experimental design, participants’ responses were measured immediately after having seen the ad and only having a single exposure. In practice, one may have repeated exposures, which in turn could influence the results.
Third, the obtained data indicated that for some cases, the total time taken to complete the survey was considerably low, suggesting that some participants did not take part in the experiment with their full attention. Future research could include an instructional
manipulation check in their survey to ensure that participants remained attentive whiles partaking in the study. In turn, this would lead to more representative and perhaps more significant findings.
Finally, earlier conducted studies have shown that other factors such as attitude towards the brand (Eckler & Bolls, 2011) and time spent consuming online content (Ho & Dempsey, 2010) are predictors of sharing intentions. Future research should take these variables in to consideration and compare the strengths of their effects.
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