The Correlation Between Humor Appreciation, Personal Coping, and Effective Advertising

Humorous ads are by far the most successful when the jokes "hit". However with great reward comes great risk and most people avoid humor in advertising as a way of controlling risk. The risk that is expected though, does not exist if you find the right target. Of course, when you target a demographic, presentation is key - you must say the right things in the right way to the right people - in order to convince your demographic to purchase your product. 

This Billboard Comically and Effectively Sells this Toothpaste
Company's Claim that their Product "Builds Strong Teeth"
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Using the Multidimentional Sense of Humor Scale (MSHS) created by Dr. James Thorson, Dr. Carolyn Costley and Dr. Scott Koslow - from the University of Waikato (New Zealand) - along with Dr. Graeme Galloway, La Trobe University (Australia), rated the effectiveness of various advertising styles and compounded their results into a Humor Appreciation (HA), rating. 


Quoting from their study report: "Humor appreciation (HA) appears to measure the degree to which an individual likes humor from others. Thus, scores on this could correspond to ratings across the board, a general tendency to find someone else’s humor attempts amusing. "

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In the study, they considered factors such as using humor as a survival adaptive strategy; to cope with stress or denial of embarrassing emotions. While they admit that the HA scale " is in its infancy of study", they do show that humorous ads themed towards personal coping tend to be the most effective in reaching potential consumers. Of course, you want your ad to be strongly tied to your product. Therefore, depending on your industry, finding a way to humorously express how your product helps consumers cope with personal or daily problems (anything from their mortgage payments to their family problems to not being able to scrub the last bits of egg off the frying pan) is the best way scientifically to market to your target demographic. 

This Got Milk? ad plays on a common household situation
and comically expresses how milk can help solve the situation
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Find out the problems they are struggling with and design a campaign that: A) enables them to laugh at their problems, B) expresses how your product will solve their problem. If you can design an advertisement that hits these two points you will have demonstrated the value of your product and the comedy will leave a lasting impression.  The other key is to make sure "the humor appeals to the targeted audience; otherwise, it is just not funny." Of course some might say this is the most difficult part, but that is where it is up to you, it is what makes marketing a fun challenge! And if you are successful in creating an advertisement using these principals it highly likely that your product will be the one people are reaching for.






Reference: Carolyn Costley, Scott Koslow, Graeme Galloway, "SENSE OF HUMOR AND ADVERTISING: A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE MODEL", in Advances in Consumer Research Volume 29, eds. Susan M. Broniarczyk and Kent Nakamoto, Valdosta, GA : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 225-226. 

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By: Will Pearlman