1. Humor in
Advertisement
Presented by :
A. Jayashankar (EX 01)
Abhishek Rai (EX02)
Aditya Ghosh ( EX03)
Akhil Sharma ( EX04)
Aman Ajit ( EX05)

2. Humor in Advertisement : The History
To have a sense of humor is a good thing. Every one agrees, right ?
 Prepare yourself for a shock because only about 400 years ago humor
was called “Satanic spirit of man”.
 Greek philosophy depicted humor as cruel and brutal affair.
 Plato called it “motivation of envy” whereas Aristotle described
laughter as “degrading to morals, art and religion”
Relevance of this to present world.
It is just like a warning that humor is not as simple as it appears. Upon
study it emerges as jeckyll & Hyde phenomenon that can have both
negative and positive effect.

3. Humor in Advertisement : A Quick Structure
Ad DHL

4. Anatomy of Humorous Ads
What makes a commercial humorous ?
 The key is “Incongruity”
 Writer creates humor by surprising us.
 He forces us momentarily, to fuse together two things that already
exist in mind but are otherwise unrelated and incompatible .
 Then Bizarre combination becomes enjoyable.
What are the elements of humorous ads ?
 Two concepts ( dumb bird & Human Intelligence)
 Incongruity/incompatibility between them.
 Confidence of stimulus element occurring in reality as
depicted highly unlikely.
 A way of fusing the two and making them momentarily
compatible.

5. Integration of Brand and execution
When we are getting attention than why to talk of integration ?
• Usually brand appears in the commercial almost as a ‘tag’ at the end of the ad.
• Specially in case of humorous ads, ‘attention over-shadowing ’ effect plays spoil
sport. Ad wise
What do you mean by Integration ?
• A test : Imagine the ad with your competitor brand substituted in it instead. Does this
ad still makes sense ?
• If answer is ‘YES’ than you are suffering with integration issue.
• Integration of ad at brand level is also important along with product level integration.
• Ideally brand name itself should tie in as seen in above example of Budweiser
• Lets run same test for Bird and DHL ad seen earlier.
• How to correct it ?
Had this ad been for Kruger Allstate Transport than would the story been different.
• Kruger Allstate Transport i.e. for KAT , could be easily integral execution element.

6. Effect of Medium / channel
“Studies shows that ads that are viewed by audiences that
typically consists of just one person have less chances of
being seen as funny”
It has been consistently said that a listener or viewer laughs because other
do or have , i.e. people laugh more if they are with other people.
“So it could be inferred that humor works better in TV and radio than
print ”. ( various survey and researches have also supported it).
There is also a difference between radio and television comedy.
• Visual humor can be developed much quicker than dialog-driven humor.
• You can see funny faster than you can hear it.
• Where TV advertising is usually "gag" oriented, radio advertising is "joke"
oriented in design

7. Limitation of use of humor
When someone points a gun at us, it hijacks our attention. Understandably we
becomes so focused on gun that we take little notice of anything else.
Similarly, humor may provide big guns to advertisers to get noticed
but humor can also hijack attention so that people may not take the
message or even not notice the brand.
Humor is not any trump card or a guarantee of sure win.
• Its application and effect depends upon context, and content of ad.
• If above factors are not given proper consideration before using humor whole
campaign can go in drain or worst can even backfire.
• Lets se an advertisement to explain it in detail.
Effect of advertisement
The commercial was neither popular nor effective. LGBT groups protested and
started a boycott on Holiday Inn. Average Americans now associated Holiday
Inns with transsexuals. It was an all-around catastrophe, cementing its place in
failed campaign history.

8. Different Emotions & Ad Appeals
z
Lower brand recall
Gains attention
Interferes with mesg
Insurance/Health Products Increases retention
comprehension
Increase persuasiveness
Strong feelings about ad

9. Different Emotions & Ad Appeals
Print Media Best option Consumers ignore most ads
Audience can pause and Rational ads go unnoticed
deliberate on contents Emotional ads can capture
Useful for B2B advertisers attention

10. Different Emotions & Ad Appeals
Based on limited supply Often tied with
Based on limited time to promotional tools like
Encourages customer to purchase contests,coupans etc
take action

11. References
• Advertising and minds of consumer by Max
Sutherland & Alice K. Sylvester
• http://www.allbusiness.com/professional-
scientific/advertising-related-services/346348-
1.html

12. Thank you