Group
15’s Awesome Web Page
Introduction
Samantha T. Martinez - Writer
Jason M. Morgan – Webpage Designer and Creator
Michelle A. Nyarku - Writer
Cody M. Pignotti – Writer
Jake Moyer - Writer
The Budweiser frogs, Orbit gum, and VW commercials are prime examples of how humor is used to sell an idea or product. In these companies humor is the main reason why their commercials have such success. The reason these work so well is that audiences are looking for entertainment and something fresh. Audiences are tired of being bombarded by hundreds of advertisements each day. To catch the attention of a viewer waiting for his or her show to come back on a commercial needs to be entertaining and give the viewer a reason to pay attention. Comedy is one of the oldest forms of entertainment, plus it is simple and can be adapted to any situation. Also, studies have shown that people are more likely to be open to suggestion while in a good mood. This project will explain the reasons why we use humor in advertising and why it works so well.
Humor in advertising and how it
sells
Humor is the capacity to perceive,
appreciate, or express what is funny and amusing. Humor in advertising is a
delicate method of attracting viewers, or listeners. Attraction and catching up
target audience’s attention to a client’s product. Rarely can a person tune in
to radio station without hearing an advertisement
that is meant to be humorous. Humor is in fact used in 30.6% of all radio
advertising (Weinberger and
People cannot be argued into buying a product unless they are attracted to the
product through humor. Of course the first time someone watches a commercial of
a particular brand, that brand name will not stick until it was found humorous
and then probably yielding more attention in terms of time of purchase.
People are hungry for a moment of relief, a little island of pleasure that will
offer respite from the day’s news. Ads that entertain are like oxygen: a moment
to breathe, a release from the events of a tiring day. As to say, if you can’t
make them laugh, you can’t make them buy. An example of such advert is
that of a classic ad (if readers may recall) that showed, a lovebird pecking at
what seemed like food but was really the keys of a Touch-Tone telephone. The
beeps indicated it was accidentally dialing someone. Of course, this had to be
accidental. Everyone knows birds don’t dial. And even if they did, who would
they call? But in the next scene we see a courier arrive. He picks up the
sleeping cat with delivery note attached and departs to the off-screen sound of
the bird chirping or
maybe chuckling. We suddenly realize it wasn’t just random food-pecking
behavior the bird phoned the courier company to dispose
of its nemesis, the cat.
So what makes a commercial like this one humorous? What’s in it that make us
laugh? The key is in the absurdity. The odd picture of the bird pecking is
mixed up with what we identify as an abnormally human trait that is,
intelligent, manipulative behavior. Seemingly random pecking by a bird at
telephone keys turns out to be cunning, deliberate behavior that you just don’t
expect from a bird.
Humor appears to be everywhere; it helps in the choice of products thus making
a great impact on a consumer’s desire. This promotes a great deal of market in
the sense that when consumers get attracted with what they see or hear, they tend to purchase that advertised product.
Laughter is the ultimate escape from stress. But the kind of humor that’s
appropriate has changed. When a TV commercial is greeted with gales of
laughter, it can be a good thing, a sign that the marketer has truly connected
with tough-to-reach consumers who demand to be entertained in all aspects of
life.
More than $150 billion dollars is spent on advertising in national media
annually; with between 10% and 30% of that amount going for the placement of
ads that are intended to be humorous (Weinberger and Campbell, P.91) because
that is what improve the sales of products.
There are three main mechanisms by which humor is supposed to work in
advertising:
● Less counter-arguing. Because we process them
as entertainment (rather than engage in true/false evaluation of the content),
there is less counter-arguing with humorous ads.
● Humorous ads are noticed more-that is, they draw greater attention.
● Humorous ads are generally liked more. Ads that are liked have a higher
probability of being effective, all other things being equal.
Despite the large allocation of resources to humorous advertising, a recent
review of the literature revealed that though the pace of humor research has
increased, because humor is difficult to achieve because it can offend as
easily as it can invoke laughter or a smile. (Weinberger and Gulas 1992).
The desire to be humored appears to be universal; however, there appears to be
no sure way to humor some without offending others. Perhaps that’s why it is so
special when advertisements do hit the mark. One thing is inarguably clear.
Offending customers or potential customers is no laughing matter. No wonder
that most advertisements are not funny.
But humor can hijack attention so totally that people don’t take in the message
or even the brand that is shown in the ad that they are too preoccupied with
the humor. Despite the large allocation of resources to humorous advertising, a
recent review of the literature revealed that though the pace of humor research
has increased, relatively few of the studies have had a systematic conceptual
framework (Weinberger and Gulas 1992).
Humor helps in the promotion of products. That’s why much money is invested
into it, using brand names and recognized people as an integral part of the
ads, to make people to get to the product.
Incase of humorous ads because people purchase products knowing there’s a good
brand name attached to it. Everybody loves to get to what is mostly known.
In short, creating funny advertising isn’t hard, but using humor to effectively
sell products is a different story altogether.
Jeep!
Attention Getters and Techniques of Advertising
As human beings we pay attention to the unusual, unexpected and the atypical in the environment that we live in We generally pay attention to the simple sense of sight and sound, things that are familiar and things that we can understand. If something does not relate to us, it generally is shoved off. We pay attention to the familiar, or something that applies to a service we need, or object that we need at that point and time of advertisement.
Camera workings are another really large technique used to catch the eye in advertising. The simple placement of a camera can make us intrigued and/or pay attention rather than a simple angle shot. The same technique in a camcorder such as close-ups, zoom-ins, panoramic or birds eye views are catching.
Not only camera angles, but music and computer graphics help an audience gain attention in the advertisement. Either mood music that generates happy, concerned, or excited tones will set the mood for the advertisement. Also buying rights for already famous songs that are believed to represent the product being advertised is very common. Computer graphics allow making the scenery more interesting, adding a talking animal or a fictional character into the thirty second slot.
One of the most common techniques that have been used in sitcoms as well as advertising is the canned laughter. It’s is almost as if people do not know if it is allowed to laugh at something funny. It helps promote the laughter from the audience and therefore will promote them to remember the advertisement if they find it funny.
Priceless!
Humor in Super Bowl Advertisements
The Super Bowl is known as one of the great American past-times. Every year millions of families across the country and across the world gather around their TV screens for what turns out to be one of the highest viewed broadcasts of the year. The commercials for the event cost over $2 million for a 30 second spot, and the ads themselves cost $165 million to make and display. With this massive amount of money being spent every year, the advertising in some ways has attracted more attention than the actual game. Some even watch the Super Bowl solely for seeing the new advertisements.
The massive money input into the advertisements does pay off in the long run. The Super Bowl is the most watched TV event nearly every year. Around 90 million people will view it every year. All of the money put into the advertisements results in spectacular and hilarious advertisements, that turn people on to the ads. Most people frown upon the excessive advertising in the media, and in time are turned off from the seemingly non-stop barrage of advertisements coming in every direction. Eventually it gets to the point where many people ignore the commercials or change the channel. This is not the case when it comes to the Super Bowl, it is indeed quite the opposite. The more the advertising is commented on, broadcasted about, and written about in newspapers and magazines, the more people it draws every year. The hype over Super Bowl commercials only gets bigger and bigger every year, and this tends to only draw more people towards watching the game and the commercials. This is why the price for advertisements during the Super Bowl is growing and growing at an upward trend.
Football is identified as a manly sport. The picture of someone watching football is usually a middle aged man who likes to sit down and have a few drinks every Sunday, or the adolescent male aged 14-19 who has a large interest in sports. Advertisers are aware.
Conclusion
In
conclusion to our newsletter, we would like to once again point out that between
10% and 30% of all national media is intended to be humorous. Therefore, most advertising agencies search
for commercial advertising managers to deliver the humorous aspect through
their product. As witnessed in recent
telecommunications video promoting the advertising chapter, a sales
representative will sit down with a few advertising spokesmen and work out a
desire that would like to be expressed.
This is a simple means of creating a masterpiece to the consumer to
posses the quality of wanting that product.
This happens everyday in the advertising world because new ideas are
constantly being processed in the fact of emotionally capturing the
consumer.
Humor is
indeed the currently rising, top selling marketing technique throughout advertising. We chose this topic because we all had a
knowledgeable niche of how products sell.
Group 15 got together a couple weeks ago, sat down during MTV’s hit show
THE REAL WORLD, and counted how many commercials introduced a form of humor to
grab our attention. There were three sets of commercial interruptions
throughout the show and in every one of them, three out of four commercials
averaged out. As we close our newsletter
we would like to share our opinion, expressing that we are all emotionally
touched in some way by humor in advertising and hope that it is used quite
often in the future.
References
Eron M. Berg, Louis G. Lippman. Does Humor in
Radio Affect Recognition of Novel Product Brand Names? Journal of General
Psychology, April, 2001.
Harlan E. Spotts , Marc G. Weinberger, Amy L. Parsons
Assessing the Use and Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A
Contingency Approach.
Weinberger and Gulas 1992. Assessing the Use and
Impact of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach.
Weinberger et al. 1995. Assessing the Use and Impact
of Humor on Advertising Effectiveness: A Contingency Approach.