Consumer Behavior. Does Audience Involvement Matter

RESPONSES TO HUMOROUS ADS. Does Audience Involvement Matter?

Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006

This study investigates the relationship between audience involvement—a critical audience state in humorous advertising—and the responses to humorous ads. It is hypothesized that the degree to which the audience is involved with the ad determines how the ad humor is processed because the functions that ad humor plays vary depending on the state of audience involvement. An experiment involving 360 participants tested the hypotheses. The results support the conceptualization of humor’s various roles and the moderating function of audience involvement. Specifically, for products that are not intrinsically humorous, ad humor is more effective in influencing audience attitudes toward both the ad and brand when involvement is relatively low rather than high. Implications are discussed with regard to formulating advertising strategies employing humor as a device.

Fundamental to the practice of employing humor in advertising is the belief that humor helps influence audience responses to the ad and the advertised product in a direction favorable to the advertiser. This belief has led to the popularity of using humor in advertising.

We argue that crucial to the success of advertising humor is the knowledge of what function humor plays, and the processes through which humor may influence advertising persuasion. The following sections will examine the conceptual foundations for understanding humor’s various roles under different conditions, and report the findings of an experimental study that tested the hypotheses about the proposed humor effects.

Involvement and functions of humor

Involvement has been defined as “an individual, internal state of arousal with intensity, direction, and persistence properties”.

Using the framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann (1983) indicated that under a low-involvement condition, people process...