CREATIVE

ADVERTISING:
IMPACT OF
HUMOR IN
ADVERTISING ON
CONSUMER
PURCHASE
DECISION
COMPONENTS

 Introduction
 Theoretical Foundation
 Research Model
 Research Setting
 Research Method
 Research Findings
INTRODUCTION
Research Definition:

 Advertising has a psychological impact on consumers and influences the buying

decisions of consumers.

 Influencing the human mind is challenging. People get bored easily and messages

gets in and out constantly.

 For an advertisement to be successful, consumers need to do more than

enjoying and laughing when they see a magazine advertisement or a TV

commercial.

 Applying humor has been predicted to succeed in maintaining the messages to

be stuck in the minds of consumers.

INTRODUCTION

Research Questions: Research Purpose:

1) What is Humor in Advertising? 1) To understand the concepts and the
different types of humor used by marketers
2) How does the consumer make the
to promote their products/services.
purchase decision?
2) To identify the impact of humorous
3) How is the Vietnamese consumer
messages and advertising techniques towards
purchase decision is influenced by humorous
consumers decision making process.
advertisement?
 THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
 Types of Humor:
1) Black Humor
3) Blue Humor
 A type of humor by canceling out the serious
 Blue humor does not
side of socially taboo subjects like death,
refer to any specific type
illness, morality or sex and approached playfully.
of joke; it is just the
 However, the advertisers need a light touch and category of humor
sensitivity or the humor could backfire. that deals with
sexuality and bodily
2) Unexpected and Situation Humor
functions.
 The situation dependent jokes do not spring
 The humor comes from
from imagination but are written by a person
breaking taboos,
is in perfectly normal, everyday situation.
leading to an inner
 The key factor of unintentional humor is the conflict which resolves
character is unprepared. itself in laughter.
 Elaboration Likelihood Model
 Framework was developed by Cacioppo and Petty (1984) is a model of persuasion developed in the 1980s.
 Aims to explain different ways of processing stimuli, why they are used, and their outcomes on attitude change.
 The ELM proposes two major routes to persuasion:
Central route:
-Persuasion will likely result from a person's careful and thoughtful consideration of the information presented in
support of an advocacy.
-Involves a high level of message elaboration in which a great amount of cognition about the arguments are generated
by the individual receiving the message.
Peripheral route:
-Persuasion results from a person's association with positive or negative cues in the stimulus or making a simple
inference about the merits of the advocated position.
-The cues received by the individual under the peripheral route are generally unrelated to the logical quality of the
stimulus. It will involve factors such as the credibility or attractiveness of the sources of the message, or the
production quality of the message.
Consumer Buying Behavior Model
 Adapted by Henry Assael (Boston Kent Publishing Company, 1987).
 High Involvement Products:
 Characterized by high levels of involvement in a purchase decision and with a
significant differences among brands.
 When the product is expensive, risky, infrequently purchase such as cars and
computers, high involvement in making decision is necessary.
 Dissonance Reducing Buying Behavior:
 High involvement but there are few perceived differences among brands.
 Since the brand differences are not large, buyers may do some research, but they
will make the decision relatively quickly.
 Habitual Buying Behavior:
 Situations where a consumer has low involvement in a purchase and perceives
insignificant brand difference. Example: Everyday use products.
 Variety Seeking Buying Behavior:
 Situations where there is low consumer involvement, but the consumer perceives
significant differences between the brands. Consumers tend to do a lot of brand
switching. Example: Food Buying
 Consumer Decision Making Process Model
 Stages of considerations when making a decision on purchasing a product or service.
 It is clear that the buying process starts long before and proceeds after the actual purchase (or not to buy decision).
 Consumers often skip some of the stages and jump right into their purchasing decisions.
RESEARCH MODEL
Comparison

Personification

Exaggeration
Ability to receive and
Pun remember messages Purchase Decisions

Sarcasm

Silliness

Surprise
 Humor in Advertising
 Comparison  Sarcasm
 Putting two or more elements together to  According to Reick (1997), sarcastic comments
produce a humorous situation. or situations are classified as silliness. In this
study, however, sarcasm is a separate category
 Personification including blatant ironic responses or situations.
 Attributes human characteristics to animals,
plants and objects.
 Silliness
 Silliness ranges from making funny faces to
 Exaggeration ludicrous situations.
 Overstating and magnifying something out of
proportion.
 Surprise
 Includes all advertisements where humor
 Pun arises from unexpected situations.
 Using elements of language to create new
meanings, which result in humor.
RESEARCH SETTING

 Object:
 Individual consumer.
 Frequency in buying packaged food and beverages product.
 When:
 Data was collected in the year of 2013.
 By Saimaa University of Applied Sciences, Lappeenranta.
 Where:
 Self-administered questionnaires: Printed and distributed in a convenience store in Hanoi, Vietnam.
 In-depth interviews: Asked around the people in a convenience store in Hanoi, Vietnam.
RESEARCH METHOD
Study Approach & Instruments

In-Depth Interview

 Conducted face-to-face with respondents to examine the attitudes, feelings and motivations of consumer.

 The interviews aim to examine consumer’s reaction to different types of humor used in food and beverage
advertisements. The respondents were shown seven TV advertisements with different humorous appeal.
Then they were guided by the interviewer and the questions to explain their reaction, opinion and degree of
involvement in purchase decision.

 The advertisements were examples of seven types of humor: comparison, exaggeration, personification, surprise,
pun, sarcasm and silliness. The respondent was asked to express their ideas about each advertisement or about the ones
he or she liked

 There was no particular order or rules, the respondent is free to talk and reveal his or her thought freely.
 KFC (comparison) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neB1-1_kU0U
 Oreo (exaggeration) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIDaX0eMeCiIk
 Vinamilk (personification) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duD95Xqz3-8
 Heineken (surprise) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYwT6kXWvZc
 Cheez it Zingz (pun) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRK49XmGruQ
 Cheetos (sarcasm) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_5u8JrUgXE
 Doritos (sillyness) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmhhbJIBoNs
Guiding questions for the in-depth interview:
 1. What would you say is the message of the ads?
 2. How do you feel about the ads? Is it funny /entertaining/ boring/ offensive/ annoying…?
 3. Is the humor used in the ads appropriate for the products? Why?
 4. Which advertisement caught your attention? Which one do you enjoy the most?
 5. Which product are you most likely to buy? Why?
 6. Do you think the advertisement will be welcomed among other audiences?
 7. Will you be able to remember this advertisement or this product after today?
 8. If you have familiar with the product advertised, does the product alter your opinions or make you involve in
purchase decision?
 9. Can you describe or give some ideas about an appropriate advertisement for packaged food and product? What
do you wish to see?
 10. Do you think the message about the product advertised is credible?
 Self Administered Questionnaire

 Self-administered questionnaire is chosen to collect data about consumer’s buying behavior. The
questionnaire is designed to find out consumer’s pattern in making purchase decision and how
they involve in the process with packaged food and beverage products.
 Printed and distributed in a convenience store in Hanoi, Vietnam. The target population was
selected by random sampling.
 The survey contained 14 questions with different types of questions: closed-ended, open-ended, and
dichotomous.
 First Section: related to gender, marital status and children in household to collect information about
respondents’ demographics.
 Second Section: asked respondents about their frequency, information sources and decisions in shopping for
packaged food and beverage.
 Third Section: three print advertisements from a campaign of Vinamilk, a Vietnamese dairy brand were presented.
The respondents were asked to mark their evaluation of the advertisements and how the advertisements affected
their purchase activities.
 Primary Data

 Primary data were collected by the researcher himself and for his own project. In situations where secondary data
are not available and cannot answer the research questions, one must acquire data that directly relevant to the
problem.

 The answer to research question Vietnamese consumer’s buying behaviour towards humorous
advertising is obtained mostly from primary data.

 This data was collected from empirical research results, transcripts of interviews and recorded
observation.

 Secondary Data

 Secondary data are useful not only for solving the research problem but also to better understand and explain the
research problems. For example, in this case, the researcher initially gathered information, studies related to
emotions as message appeals, consumer behaviour, and marketing communication.
RESEARCH FINDINGS – RESPONDENTS DEMOGRAPHICS
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Findings on the types of humor:

 Among seven types of humor, personification, surprise, silliness and exaggeration is evaluated to have the
most entertaining value.

 Advertisements successfully executed these types of humor can achieve audience attention, make the message
viral, the product memorable and differentiate from many competitor brands.

 However, humor can easily distract audience from delivering product information or the main message.

 Other types of humor such as pun, sarcasm and comparison are perceived by consumers not as
entertaining (pun being the most least). The ability to differentiate advertised brand and product is not so
significant compare to the humor types mentioned above.

 Sarcasm is a humor type that needs to be used with caution because it can easily offend an individual or
a group of audience.
Findings on product involvement:

 The impact of humor on consumer’s purchase decision also depends on how involved or attached the
consumer is to the product.

 With new product, humorous advertising can draw consumer attention and access consumer’s long
term memory. Vietnamese consumers in this study stated that with humorous advertising, an aligning
campaign and product placement, they most likely would be able to recall the product.

 With products that are already familiar to consumer, humor has relatively little impact on
encouraging repurchases but is appropriate tactic to build brand’s image and gain consumer’s fondness.
 Consumers are likely to undertake the nominal decision making and limited decision
making since this type consists of low involvement product.

 This means these products have little risk in buying. In addition, these types of product have
significant differences among the brands, each with its own attributes and competitive advantage.

 Purchasing low involvement product, Vietnamese consumers rely mostly on commercial

information source includes advertisements, websites, packaging and displays. This
information is made available for consumers by commercial entity and does not require much effort
to obtain.
THANK YOU