STUDYING THE IMPACT OF HUMOR APPEAL IN TVC ON CONSUMER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS BEER BRAND THE CASE OF HEINEKEN BEER

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY
INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

STUDYING THE IMPACT OF HUMOR APPEAL IN
TVC ON CONSUMER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS
BEER BRAND
THE CASE OF HEINEKEN BEER

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of
BACHELOR OF ARTS in BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Advisor: MA. NGUYEN THI HUONG GIANG
Student’s name: CHAU NGUYEN HAI DANG ( BAIU08002 )
Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam
May, 2012


THE IMPACT OF HUMOR APPEAL IN TVC ON
CONSUMER’S ATTITUDE TOWARDS BEER BRAND
THE CASE OF HEINEKEN BEER

APPROVED BY Advisor

APPROVED BY: Committee ,

_____________________________

_____________________________

MA. Nguyen Thi Huong Giang

Mr/Ms.

___________________________
Mr/Ms.

_____________________________
Mr/Ms.

________________________________
Mr/Ms.

________________________________
Mr/Ms.

THESIS COMMITTEE
(Whichever applies)

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I

t is a great honor to express my deep appreciation to people who helped to
make this thesis completed successfully. Firstly, I’m grateful to my great
advisor, MA. Nguyen Thi Huong Giang, for her wonderful and enthusiastic
support. This long process would be difficult to finish without your help.

Thank you for your effort and your wide knowledge to make my topic possible, your
weekly recommendation and advice are always a guidance for me to know where I should
improve in this paper. I know your busy life leave less time for yourself, but this thesis
would be never finished successfully without your contribution. You are a wonderful lady
who has taught me a great life-lesson ,“always make it simple”.
Secondly, I sincerely thank to my best friend group of six ladies who are an
inspiration for my study. Especially, it is a pleasure to thanks to Ms. Do Ngoc Chi Mai,
Ms.Truong Hoai Anh, Ms. Pham Thi Huyen Tram, Ms. Phan Thi Thanh Hang,
Ms.Nguyen Thi Phuong Chi, Ms. Luong Phan Thanh Phuong, Mr. Nguyen Vinh Trieu
and Mr. Bui Nguyen Tin, who contributed great ideas as well as the effort to the thesis. I
believe that one of my achievement in university is a forever friendship.
Finally- Mom, Dad and my little sister- thank you so much for your unstoppable
love and unlimited encouragement for every single thing I do in life. Thanks for everyday,
you help me to deliver the survey to the respondents. You are home where I know I can
come whenever I need a true love. And thank to you, I know where my own value begins.
To all of them, I dedicate this thesis.

iii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ........................................................................................................... iii
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vi
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... vii
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. ix
CHAPTER I ................................................................................................................................... 1
I.

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE ................................................................................. 1

II.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: ................................................................................................ 4

III.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH .......................................................................... 4

IV.

LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH ............................................................................ 5
RESEARCH SCOPE............................................................................................................. 5

V.
VI.

THESIS STRUCTURE ..................................................................................................... 6

VII.

RESEARCH TIMELINE .................................................................................................. 7

CHAPTER II ................................................................................................................................. 9
RELATIONAL THEORIES ................................................................................................. 9

I.
1.

Advertising appeals ........................................................................................................... 9

2.

Humor appeal and its effect on audience ........................................................................ 11

3.

Music in advertising ........................................................................................................ 17
THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL – TRICOMPONENT ATTITUDE MODEL ................... 18

II.
1.

The cognitive ( or knowledge) component...................................................................... 20

2.

The affective ( or feeling) components ........................................................................... 21

3.

The conative ( or behavioral ) component....................................................................... 21

CHAPTER III .............................................................................................................................. 23
RESEARCH APPROACH .................................................................................................. 23

I.
1.

Quantitative Approach .................................................................................................... 24

2.

Qualitative Approach ...................................................................................................... 27

CHAPTER IV .............................................................................................................................. 31

iv


I.

SUMMARY OF BEER MARKET IN VIETNAM ........................................................... 31

II.

INTRODUCTION OF VBL Ltd. AND HEINEKEN BEER .............................................. 32

CHAPTER V ................................................................................................................................ 34
I.

RESPONSE RATE ............................................................................................................. 34

II.

DEMOGRAPHICS OF SAMPLE ...................................................................................... 34

III.

OBJECTIVE 1 ................................................................................................................ 42

1.

Elements in TVC of beer brand influence on cognitive ( or knowledge) component ..... 42

2.

Elements in TVC influence on affective ( or likability) component ............................... 46

3.

Elements in TVC influence on conative ( or behavioral) component: ............................ 49

IV.

OBJECTIVE 2 ................................................................................................................ 51

1.

Influence of TVC’s humor appeal on cognitive ( or knowledge) component ................. 51

2.

Influence of TVC’s humor appeal on affective ( or likability) component ..................... 54

3.

Influence of TVC’s humor appeal on conative ( or behavioral) component ................... 56

4.

Testing the relationship between three components of attitude ...................................... 59

5.

Compare the difference between male and female.......................................................... 60

6.

Comparing conative ( or behavioral) component of attitude among income groups ...... 63
OBJECTIVE 3 .................................................................................................................... 66

V.
1.

Reasons to like Heineken’s TVC .................................................................................... 66

2.

General evaluation towards Heineken’s TVC ................................................................. 67

VI.

OBJECTIVE 4 ................................................................................................................ 69

CHAPTER VI .............................................................................................................................. 73
I.

CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................... 73

II.

RECOMMENDATION ...................................................................................................... 76

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 79
APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................... 83
APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................... 91
APPENDIX C............................................................................................................................... 97
APPENDIX D............................................................................................................................... 98

v


LIST OF TABLES

Table 1:Research timeline ................................................................................................................. 7
Table 2: Measurement ..................................................................................................................... 25
Table 3: Response rate .................................................................................................................... 34
Table 4: Frequency distribution by gender of respondents ............................................................. 35
Table 5: Frequency distribution by age of respondents .................................................................. 36
Table 6: Frequency distribution by marriage status of respondents ................................................ 37
Table 7: Frequency distribution by occupation of respondents....................................................... 38
Table 8: Frequency distribution by monthly income of respondents ............................................ 38
Table 9: Frequency of watching TVC of respondents .................................................................... 39
Table 10: Frequency of beer brands being watched in TVC ........................................................... 40
Table 11: Descriptive statistics of elements impact cognitive component..................................... 42
Table 12:Descriptive statistics of elements impact affective component ...................................... 46
Table 13: Descriptive statistics of elements impact conative component ...................................... 49
Table 14: Reliability Statistics of Cognitive component................................................................. 51
Table 15: Item-Total Statistics ........................................................................................................ 52
Table 16: Descriptive statistics of cognitive component ................................................................ 52

Table 17: Reliability Statistics of affective component .................................................................. 54
Table 18: Descriptive statistics of affective component ................................................................ 54
Table 19: Reliability Statistics of conative component ................................................................... 56
Table 20: Item-Total Statistics ........................................................................................................ 56
Table 21: Descriptive statistics of connative component ............................................................... 57
Table 22: Correlation matrix ........................................................................................................... 59
Table 23: Group Statistics ............................................................................................................... 61
Table 24: Independent Sample T-test.............................................................................................. 62
Table 25: Test of Homogeneity of Variances ................................................................................. 64
Table 26: ANOVA .......................................................................................................................... 64
Table 27: Frequency of reasons to like Heineken ........................................................................... 66
Table 28: Descriptive statistic of current opinion towards Heineken TVC .................................... 67
Table 29: Descriptive statistics on respondent’s perception toward humorous TVC ..................... 70
Table 30: Post-hoc Test ................................................................................................................... 98

vi


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: A simple Representation of the Tricomponent Attitude Model ...................................... 19
Figure 2: A model of attitude formation theory of Eagly and Chaiken, 1993................................ 20
Figure 3: Research Design – Triangulation approach ..................................................................... 23
Figure 4: The percent of consumption of 10 leading beer brands in Vietnam, 12/2010 ................. 32
Figure 5:The percent of production market share of brewery producers in Vietnam 2010 ............ 33
Figure 6: Percentage by gender of respondents............................................................................... 35
Figure 7: Percentage by age of respondents .................................................................................... 36
Figure 8: Percentage by marriage status of respodents ................................................................... 37
Figure 9: Percentage by occupation of respondents ........................................................................ 38
Figure 10: Percentage by monthly income of respondents ............................................................. 39
Figure 11: Percentage by frequency of watching TVC ................................................................... 40

Figure 12: Percentage of beer brand watched through TVC ........................................................... 41

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“Across history from Aristotle to Freud… thoughtful and sensitive people have
always sought an understanding of the problem of humor. Humor is an inherently
mysterious and interesting phenomenon which pervades human life”
Veatch T. C., 1998

viii


ABSTRACT
Advertising nowadays is not simply a tool to increase sales for any products, but it
is also an effective way producers in all over the world use to communicate to their
target customers by delivering their products’ messages. It explains why advertising
appeal is one of very important part in any successful advertising campaign. A right
and suitable advertising appeal is completely able to create an unexpected success to
product brand. In reality, it is clearly to see that many advertisements evoke customers
interest by using humorous factors. Humor is one of the most commonly employed
communication strategies in advertising (Aldan D. L. et al,2000). There are also a lot
of studies and researches about the impact of humor on consumer’s attitude, however
it is still spare due to the broad scale of the topic. This is the reason for this paper to
study thoroughly and to discover more findings on this topic by using the academic
theory as well as model of attitude formation of Eagly and Chaiken (1993), the Tricomponent attitude model, to explore the impact of humor appeal in TVC on
consumer’s attitude toward the advertised brand. This research aims at investigating
the impact of humor appeal in TVC on consumer’s attitude through three components,
cognitive, affective and conative component of Tri-component attitude model.
By applying the triangulation approach which allows to combine both quantitative

and qualitative method, the data are collected through surveys and in-depth interviews.
Furthermore, the findings of the study will help to review the advertising strategy of
Heineken in Vietnam market. Although there still exists some limitations, the study is
also proposed many applicable recommendation and suggestion to enhance
Heineken’s

advertising

success

especially

ix

in

Vietnam

market.


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

I.

BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE
Advertising nowadays is one of the greatest ways for producers to communicate

with their customers and other stakeholders. Most of things in daily life are all advertised,
largely range from the high involvement items such as cars, wine, and jewelry to
necessaries such as food and hygiene products, from tangible to intangible offerings such
as insurance, travelling and warranty services and so forth. .
The diversity as well as continuous impact coming from advertising makes
producers not be affordable to ignore investing on this promotional element. Talking
about development trends in the world, in the latest report in year 2001-2006, a study of
America Advertising Federation (AAF) and the magazine Advertising Agenda reported
that in fact, the advertising industry is very stable growth with revenue growth averaging
4.2 per year with total income before tax estimated about $ 350 billion ( calculated for 100
leading advertising companies as Advertising Agenda selected), possesses the labor force
up to tens of millions of people all over the world (AAF), and contributed to the growth of
many famous brands worldwide.
In Vietnam, the advertising industry is developing in an intimate relationship with
the development of the economy. The total industry revenue reached $ 300 million in
2006 while in 2001 it was only $107, 6 million (equal to 1/45 compared to 18 billion USD
in Chinese and 1/20 of 6 billion USD in Thailand ). As reported by market research

1


company, TNS Media Vietnam, 70% of advertising budget of newspaper advertising is for
5 newspapers and magazines who have the largest audiences including Tuoi Tre, Thanh
Nien, Bong Da, Cong An Thanh Pho and Tiep Thi Gia Dinh. Meanwhile, in TV
advertising, 80% of advertising budget places on two channels, HTV7 and VTV3. This
implied the fact that brands choose to spend on advertising mostly for TV advertising and
newspaper magazine; However, because Vietnam advertising industry is still on
developing stage, therefore media channels are still the most beneficial choice for brands.
(wwmt.wordpress.com). Along with the continuous development in advertising industry, it
is clearly to see that the trends of advertising in the world as well as in Vietnam are

developing with careful consideration on investment from

numerous producers and

marketers who want to expand the promotion activities and to better deliver their product
messages to every target audience. Brewery industry is one of the examples of generous
advertising spenders. Amongst extensive advertising spenders, Heineken is famous for its
frequent advertisings on different media. In a report in 2003, Heineken spent 1.5 million
Pound in a 2-week-PR & advertising campaign in England to promote for replacing
Heineken Export and Heineken Cold Filtered by Heineken Premium in this country (
www.vnbrand.net ). The success of Heineken is not just recognized worldwide.
In Recent years, Heineken pushed their marketing campaigns by becoming the
organizer of many events in Vietnam that attract attention of young people around
Vietnam . The young Vietnamese consumers become more and more become familiar
with the brand of Heineken through such events as annual New year countdown event,
Talented DJ, Heineken brings you a Magical Christmas, etc. (www.vnbrand.net) Given
their current popularity in Vietnam market, Heineken beer also stands out from other
direct competitors by the way they use humor appeal in advertising as the main “tool” to
attract target consumers. People will never forget Vietnamese audience can remember
some funny advertisements of Heineken of starring Jenifer Aniston or the jingle of the
song Quando Quando. The most recent Heineken beer advertisement named ‘The
Entrance’ is evaluated as highly creative and humorous with meaningful message. As

2


the consequence, the significance in advertising of Heineken becomes it own
differentiation to distinguish with other competitors as well as to increase the brand
equity.
Heineken is a typical illustration about the success in using humor as a main

appeal in advertisements. There are many researches showing that humor is powerful and
being widely used in advertising industry. To be more detailed, humor is recognized being
one of the most frequently used techniques in modern advertising. It is estimated in
Markiewicz's research in 1974 that the humor usage in television and radio advertising is
as high as 42% compare to others media, Super Bowl advertising has become very
popular in the U.S., and the top ten advertisements based on meter results all used humor
in 2003, 2004, and 2005 ( Gulas and Weinberger, 2006). Also, according to Weinberger
in 1995, more than $150 billion is spent on advertising in national media in a year, with
between 10% and 30% of that amount going for the placement of ads that are intended to
be humorous (para. in Spotts, Weinberger, and Parsons, 1997). According to TNS Media
Intelligence report in 2008, advertisers in the United States spend about $45 billion a year
on humorous advertisements on the basis of the total advertising expenditures in 2007
(Strick Baaren, Holland, and Knippenberg, 2009). Given the fact that consumers in over
the world are different in cultures, their perception, absorption and attitude toward a same
global humorous advertising could be various. Heineken, however, is renowned for its
global advertising campaigns that are used in many different countries. Consequently,
Heineken may face with some issues relating to the taste and attitude of local customers
toward its advertising. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate the impact of humor
appeal used in advertising on Vietnamese consumer’s attitude toward beer products as
general and toward Heineken beer as specific. This study is to review Heineken humorous
advertisings (specifically TVC) and suggest a more effective advertising strategy for this
beer brand in Vietnam market in the near future. .

3


II.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES:
This study is conducted to accomplish these following research objectives:
-

To determine the factors in TVC that influence the target audience’s attitude
components.

-

To discover if TVC’s humor appeal can influence on audience’s attitude towards
brand beer Heineken.

-

To understand target audience’s current opinion towards TVC of Heineken.

-

To support applicable recommendation for Heineken in improving its TVC’s
humor effect on target audience ‘s attitude.

III.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESEARCH
There is a large number of research studies on humor appeal in advertising as well as

its impact on customers or brand. Most of those researches used experiment to explore the
impact of humor on attention in magazine advertising ( Madden and Weinberger, 1982),
humor’s effects on persuasion ( Markiewickz D., 1974) , relationship of humor and ad
response (Thomas W. Cline, Moses B. Altsech, James J. Kellaris, 2003).More general
researches are study about the impact of humor on advertising effectiveness (Harlan E
Spotts; Marc G Weinberger; Amy L Parsons, 1997) and humor in advertising overview (
Sternthal B. and Craig C. S., 1973), etc. In sum, those researches study deeply about the

impact of humor appeal in advertising on behavioral and effective response of consumers
.However, the approach of attitude was not studied thoroughly in those researches, in
which they just mentioned attitude partly as an aspect that could be influenced from
humor appeal. Therefore, there may still exist a gap in research about the impact of
humor appeal on consumer’s attitude that need to be explored. Hence, the reason for
conducting this research is definitely of many benefit in academic field as a premise
research or supplement material to further researchers who expect to study in the similar
topics with a bigger scale.In addition, similar studies about the impact of humor appeal in
TVC and advertising on Vietnamese consumer’s attitude toward brewery product and

4


brands are considerably limited and not yet sufficient. It is clearly that the researches on
this topic will firstly benefit for Heineken’s management and marketer

as well as

advertising practitioners to review their advertising approaches and improve their current
advertising strategy.Then,basing on the findings, this researcg will help Heineken to set
suitable strategy to improve their consumer’s attitude toward Heineken brand.
IV.

LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH:
During the time conducting research, it is inevitable to face with limits existing due

to unexpected obstacles. First of all, lack of time and human resource made the research
conducted with relatively small sample which only covered the response of students and
employees from HCMC instead of spreading to the bigger scale to get more valuable
result. In addition, even though survey could be conducted, through online tools, in other

three big cities such as Hanoi, Da Nang or Can Tho where exist a big number of Heineken
consumers, but those feedbacks were not counted. To be clearer, the author decided to
conducted research mainly on HCMC market, it did not study much in other big cities
around Vietnam. However, the finding is still justified due to the main distributor of
Heineken – Vietnam Brewery Limited Company is located in HCMC. Moreover, HCM
City is the city where Heineken beer is drunk with largest consumption in Vietnam
considered to have the biggest percent of Beer producing capacity ( 23% ) according
report from Vietnamnet in 2005. Therefore

marketing strategies and activities of

Heineken beer mainly focus on target consumers in HCMC. .
Secondly, because the research focuses to study on impact of humor appeal on
consumer’s attitude

including cognitive, affective and conative approach, so other

components of advertising such as rational appeal, visual and audio factors as well as
other behavioral dimensions of consumers will not be studied thoroughly in this research.
V.

RESEARCH SCOPE:

5


This research thesis studies the existing impacts , if any, of humor appeal used in
TV advertising on consumer’s attitude toward beer brands . More specifically, the case of
Heineken beer TVC in Vietnam will be examined in more details for the purpose of this
study. . Although Heineken beer uses many global TVC for various countries, including

Vietnam, this thesis scope is to study only the impact of Heineken’s TVC in Vietnam
market. Also, due to the limit in labor as well as geographical capability mentioned above,
all interviews are done in boundary of HCM city. In addition, the results and findings
withdrawn from this research study will be used as material to help Heineken have a
deeper view on the impact of their current advertising strategy on Vietnamese consumers.
Heineken can base on these findings to suggest a more effective way in its prospective
advertising campaigns in Vietnam market. Moreover, this study also is expected to
become a premise for further future researches on similar topics.
VI.

THESIS STRUCTURE:

This thesis covers five main chapters as following:


Chapter I: Introduction

This chapter is to introduce generally about the study. It presents the context background,
then coming up with research problems and research objectives. Moreover, it also
contributes a view on research scope, limitation as well as gets through research
significance of the study.


Chapter II:

Literature reviews

Literature review is for reviewing previous relational researches in similar. In addition, it
also presents theoretical framework and model applied as foundation for analyze,
suggestion, and solution in this study.



Chapter III: Methodology

6


This chapter describes about methodologies of how to conduct this research. It aims at
introducing conducting method, explaining the process from getting data, adjusting the
scale and data from various approaches.


Chapter IV: Heineken company introduction

A general view about Heineken brand as well as its official contributor in Vietnam is to be
discussed in more details in this chapter,


Chapter V: Data analysis and findings

Chapter V is to introduce the process of data analysis, then present the main findings and
discussion


Chapter VI: Conclusion and recommendation

To present the result, then come up with suggestion on solution and how to implement and
what should be done to restrict the limitation in further researches.

1

Prepare research proposal

2

Apply for approval

3

Defense proposal

4

Design questionnaire

5
6

Distribute questionnaires and
collect questionnaires
Gather and analyze survey data

7

23-Jul

18-Jun

11-Jun

14-May

1-May

15-Apr

2-Apr

30-Mar

21-Feb

14-Feb

No. Activities

13-Feb

RESEARCH TIMELINE
Table 1:Research timeline
9-Jan

VII.


7
8

9

Mid-way report
Protocol design –In-depth
Interview conducting
Data in-depth interview
processing

10

Write thesis

11

Thesis review and edit

12

Thesis submit

13

Oral defense

14

Thesis submit final version

8


CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEWS

“ I have a reason to believe that…humor can now sell”
David Olgilvy,1982

I.

RELATIONAL THEORIES:
1. Advertising appeals:
Advertising has become one of the most important commercial activities in the

modern competitive environment. Companies spend a large part of their budget to produce
and run advertisements for promotions to communicate information about their
company and products. Companies hope that consumers will purchase their products
due to the advertisements, which deliver messages about a certain brand and its
products ( Lin, 2011). Thorson and Leavitt also (1992) stated that the best prophet
for purchase is advertising.
In 1997, Kotler used to point out in his study that advertising appeal is the theme of an
advertisement. In order to make the audience receive a necessary message, advertisers
have to put some driving power into the message. This driving power is appeal. Every
advertising appeal represents an attraction, which evoked consumers’ desires or interest.
Berkman and Gilson (1987) defined advertising appeal as an attempt at creativity that
inspires consumers’ motives for purchase and affects consumers’ attitude towards a
specific product or service. In another study in 2003, Kotler also divided advertising into
two categories, rational appeal and emotional appeal.

9



Rational Appeal

To meet the varying demands of their target consumers, advertisers commonly use
rational appeal and emotional appeal in their advertising in an attempt to influence
consumer behavior (Chu, 1996). Stafford and Day ( 1995) defined rational appeals a
presentation of factual information in a straightforward way and characterized by
objectivity. In another study in 1984, Puto and Wells referred to this rational approach as
informational advertising. According to Kotler and Armstrong (1991, 426), rational
appeals “relate to the audience’s self-interest. They show that the product will produce
the desired benefits. Examples are messages showing a product’s quality, economy, value,
or performance.” Rational appeals rely on their persuasiveness, the power of arguments
or reasons for brand attributes. By rational advertising appeal, the product can be
emphasized by its benefits, in which consumers’ self-benefit is the key proposition, and
the function or benefit requested by consumers of the product or service is articulately
presented in advertising ( Lin, 2011). Kotler ( 1991) also added that in an advertisement,
its stressed that a product or service could achieve the function and benefits consumers
desire.


Emotional Appeal

In contrast to rational appeal, Holbrook and Hirschman (1982) suggested that
emotional appeals come from the emotional, experiential side of consumption. Kotler and
Armstrong (1991) defined emotional appeal as an: “attempt to stir up either negative or
positive emotions that can motivate purchase. These include fear, guilt, and shame appeals
that get people to

do things they should or stop doing things they shouldn’t.

Communicators also use positive emotional appeals such as love, humor, pride and joy”.
Emotional advertising appeal places stress on meeting consumers’ psychological, social,
or symbolic requirements, where many purchase motives come from. Emotional appeal
advertisements seek also aim to make the consumer feel good about the product, by
creating a likeable or friendly brand and they rely on feelings for effectiveness. emotional

10


appeal includes positive and negative emotional appeal. Positive emotional appeal covers
humor, love, happiness, and so forth, while negative emotional appeal involves fear, a
sense of guilt, and so on.
In summary, it is clearly that there are two main advertising message appeals,
those are emotional and rational appeal and this is general proposed that these appeal
should match the characteristics of goods or services and the purpose that producers
expect customers accept their delivered message. However, in order to support for this
research, the emotional appeal will be more focused and especially humor appeal, one of
the emotional appeal, and its effect will be studied thoroughly.
2. Humor appeal and its effect on audience:


Humor Appeal

Humor is a medium that serves for many purposes in social interactions in our
everyday lives: it either represents friendliness and politeness (Brown and Levinson,
1987) or reduces threat and criticism (Holmes, 1998). It is a shortcut to approach an
individual in a positive manner or it can be used to give the individual a bad or
offensive message in a constructive manner.
Defining humor has not been an easy task, that is why there are many researchers

and authors made various definitions. Veatch in his study in 1998 described humor as
“Humor, that certain psychological state which tends to produce laughter”. In an earlier
review of humor in advertising, Sternthal and Craig (1973) offer three different
approaches to define humor:
i. In terms of stimulus properties: Presence of humor is characterized by jokes,
understatements, turns of phrases, puns, double entendres, satire, irony,
slapstick or incongruity.
ii. In terms of observed responses from an identifiable stimulus, such as
heightened arousal, laughs, smiles… exhibited by an audience in response to a

11


particular message. However, the intensity and duration of arousal, smiles, and
laughter are difficult to scale.
iii. In terms of perceptual responses of the audience: Special tests measuring the
extent to which a message is perceived to be humorous by the audience. This
may be achieved by pencil-and-paper test which measures the extent to which
individual feel a message to be humorous and entertaining.
Kelly and Soloman, in their research in 1975, define humor in advertisements as
(1) a pun, a humorous way of using a word that suggests two interpretations; (2) an
understatement, since sometimes the humorous advertisement means something that is
less than the real; (3) a joke, since the humor in advertisements is sometimes presented
without any seriousness; (4) something ludicrous, which is just used for the purpose to
laugh; (5) a satire, as sarcasm is used in some of the humorous advertisements to show
vice or folly; (6) irony, since sometimes the words are used to express the opposite
meanings; and, what the researchers say is the most important one, (7) intent, which is the
perceived purpose of advertiser to be humorous.
Another research of Catanescu & Tom (2011), they added two more categories of
humor classification , including comparison and personification into classification system

employed before in research of Reick (1998). And finally, this system defined seven types
of humor: exaggeration, pun, sarcasm, silliness, surprise, comparison and personification.
To be more detailed, (1) comparison means putting two or more element together to
produce humorous situation. (2) Personification is specified by attributes human
characteristics to animals, plants or objects. (3) Exaggeration means overstating and
magnifying something out of proportion. (4) Pun is using elements of language to create
new meanings, which result in humor. (5) Sarcasm is defined as sarcastic comments or
situation are classified as silliness. (6) Silliness this can be ranged from making funny
faces to ludicrous situation. And (7) Surprise includes all advertisement where humor
arises from unexpected situation . The fact that different media uses certain types of

12


humor more often suggest that the effectiveness of the humor types may differ by
medium. Different types of humor may be better suited for different types of products as
well ( Catanescu & Tom, 2001). Moreover, Catanescu & Tom also revealed that humor is
used more in television ads than print ads. These findings support the belief of advertising
that television is a more effective channel to use humor.
Humor is widely used by advertisers all around the world. For example, a
quarter of all prime time television advertisements in US use humor appeal (Weinberger
and Spotts, 1995; 1997) .Advertisers in the 1990s argued that they should adapt the use
of humor to changing societal factors, such as “the mood of the times and the economy in
general” (Beard , 1998). The use of humor became more and more popular among
advertisers after that, and humor has become one of the most popular strategies in
television advertising. Advertisers and marketers also recognized that humor plays a
significant role in promoting brands, and consequently fuelling purchase intentions.
Unlike sexual appeal, humor is far less controversial and is otherwise appreciated and
embraced( Moncada N., 2010). Both Dr. Cline and Dr. Kellaris have demonstrated that
simple humor in ads can inadvertently generate greater assessments towards the brand

and product or service.


Humor appeal and attention:

Studies have shown that 94% of advertising practitioners see humor as an effective
way to gain attention, and 55 percent of advertising research executives consider humor to
be superior to seriousness in arresting attention (Weinberger and Gulas, 2006). Herold
(1963) said that humorous advertising is more likely to draw people's attention, increase
memorability, and enhance message persuasiveness by “attracting attention in a relevant
way, then by imparting pleasant information an making a soft sell, all in a mixed
atmosphere of relaxation and integrity”. Both advertising researchers and practitioners
believe that through humor, attention and awareness are successfully achieved
(Beard, 2005; Madden and Weinberger, 1982; Weinberger and Gulas, 1992). In their

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review of literature, Weinberger and Gulas (1992) cited from Duncan ( 1979) and Madden
(1982) to support humor –relatedness differently affect attention. In fact, they argued that
controlling the relatedness of humor made the finding of experimental studies in
advertising unanimous and support for humor’s positive impact on attention. Because
increasing attention creates opportunities for more extensive information processing, so
humor in an ad may lead to an enhance of message processing.
Joe Sedelmaier, a guru of humorous ads, has long claim that the presence of humor
effectively increases attention to ads. Using industry data, Madden and Einberger in 1982,
found that humorous magazine ads outperformed non-humorous ads in term of generating
and holding attention. Moreover, in 1995, Weinberger and his colleagues also found
evidence that humor is directly linked to both attention and recognition. Spotts,
Weinberger and Parsons in 1997 also used industry data to show that humor enhanced

initial attention, aided brand recall and held attention for both high-risk/expressive goods (
e.g: snack foods, beer) and high-risk/functional goods ( e.g, appliances). Duncan and
Nelson ( 1985) also demonstrated humor’s positive impact on attention.
Compared with non-humorous advertisements, humorous advertising tends to have
more positive results on drawing people's attention. In a laboratory test of attention
effects of humor in advertising, Speck compared humorous advertisements with nonhumorous with four attention measures, naming initial attention, sustained attention,
projected attention and overall attention,. He also found that humorous advertisements
outperform non-humorous advertisements on each of these attention measures.


Humor appeal and liking:

The reason why humor has been widely used in advertising is due to its power of
creating likability towards the advertisement from the consumer. It has been found by
Weingerber and Spotts (1989) that advertising practitioners coming from the U.S. and
U.K. are generally favor in the use of humor on advertising. A couple of reasons are found
and supported by many other researches that humor can enhance one’s favorable attitude

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towards an advertisement . It is reviewed by Weingerber and Gulas (1992) that ten
advertising studies and seven non-advertising studies report a positive effect of humor on
liking while only two advertising studies and three non-advertising studies report neutral
or mixed findings. By experiment, in the study of Gelb and Pickett (1983), they
successfully tested the hypothesis of the perceived humor in an advertisement is positively
associated with liking the advertisements. There is numerous researches supported that
likability to an advertisement directly associated with the likability to a brand (Gelb &
Zinkha, 1985; Mitchell & Olson,1981; Shimp, 1981; Zhang, 1996). Theoretically, Shimp
(1981) argued that the increased favorable attitude towards an advertisement would

enhance the likability toward the brand advertised and eventually affect the consumer’s
choice of brand. Marketing literature gives similar strong support for enhanced liking
through the use of humor which has been shown to increase both liking of the ad ( Belch
,1984; Gelb and Pickett 1983; Duncan and Nelson 1985;Speck 1987) and liking of the
brand ( Gelb and Pickett 1983;Gelb and Zinkhan 1986;Duncan and Nelson 1985).
Since the likability toward an advertisement is strongly mediating the likability to
a brand and even the choice of brand, so in the research of Cheng and Duo about “ The
Advertising Effectiveness of projecting humor element in to sexual appeal”, they stated
that the use of humorous elements can enhance the favorable attitude towards the
advertised brand. Biel and Bridgwater's study in 1990, and Haley and Baldinger's study in
1991, indicated that liking may be an important element in the effectiveness of television
advertisements (Weinberger and Gulas,1987).

Recent studies, such as Tomkovick,

Yelkur, and Christians' study in 2001, found that humor was the most important variable
in influencing liking (Gulas and Weinberger ,1987).


Humor appeal and persuasion:

Beside creating effect on attention, liking and awareness, humor appeal using in
advertising also has persuasive effect on consumer. In the study of Sternthal and Craig in
1975, they concluded that the distraction of humor may lead to persuasion. However, they

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also noted that this persuasive effect of humor is at best no greater than that of serious
appeal. Their conclusion received advocate from U.S ads executives.

Madden and

Weinberger later in their study in 1984, also supported that conclusion by stating that
there was only 26% of practitioners agreed with the proclaim humor is more persuasive
than non-humor. Whereas, this was experienced a sharp contrast opinions from British
studies, they found out that 62% of whom viewed humor as more persuasive than nonhumor and only a small 7% disagreed with this assertion ( Madden and Weinberger,
1989). Similarly, In the research of Osterhouse and Brock, “Distraction Increase Yielding
to Propaganda by Inhibiting Counterarguing”, they maintained that increasing level of
distraction yielded a decrease in counter-argumentation and an increase in persuasion,
thus people are more likely to be persuaded by a communication when distraction is
present than when it is absent. Speck ( 1987)found three of five humor treatments
enhanced two measures of persuasion: intention to use the product and perceived product
quality. It was stated by McCollum/Spielman in 1982 that 31% of humorous commercials
exhibited above average scores of persuasiveness . Other advertising researches also
indicate that, other factors may interrupt to moderate the effect of humor on persuasion. (
Weinberger and Gulas, 1992). For instance, Lammers and his colleagues ( Lammers et al.
1983) found positive effect for humor on persuasion but this effect only for males.
Similarly, Chattopadhyay and Basu ( 1989) also found another factor, in their study
subjects with a prior positive brand attitude were more persuaded by humorous treatments
than ones who maintained pre-existing negative brand attitude.
There were two studies that directly compared levels of message intensity on
persuasiveness of a humorous message by Bryant et al. (1981) and Markiewitz (1972).
This intensity factor has two dimensions: the intensity of the humor and the intensity of
the surrounding message. Bryant and the colleagues examined the difference in the level
of humor and found out that the use of low levels of humor provided the same level of
persuasion as no humor use, whereas the extensive use of humor would create detrimental
to persuasion. The study of Markiewitz in 1972, she examined the intensity of the

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