What’s So Funny?
A look into different theories of humor and how advertisers have used them over the years
I would like to say that at Olson Zaltman we like to keep things light and have a good laugh amongst ourselves frequently. Which got us thinking… Why are things funny? What exactly is humor? Why do we even laugh?
So we did what all good researchers do; we read about it. We dove into Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind by Hurley, Dennett and Adams, Jr and became fascinated by all of the theories and ideas around humor.
Humans are always trying to make things easier on themselves by devolving into System 1 thinking — which is the automatic, fast and often unconscious way of thinking — to help make decisions and more quickly make sense of the world around us. However, in humorous situations or when hearing jokes, our System 1 autopilot is thrown off. Many jokes are enthymematic, which means the joke is leaving some of the premises of the joke unexpressed, forcing the audience to fill in those blanks using System 1 thinking. But then the punchline hits us like a bus. Our brains suddenly have to shift into System 2 thinking — the more effortful, slow and controlled way of thinking — to help us realize and understand the “funny” thing that is happening in the joke. Usually our brains would want to avoid the shift from System 1 to System 2 thinking, but we have rigged our brains to enjoy this act for humorous situations because we are rewarded with a sensation of mirth or ultimate feeling of pleasure when we understand a joke or see a funny situation.
To break this down, the definition of humor described in the book Inside Jokes, is any semantic circumstance in which a mistake is made and we succeed in discovering it. In a way, it is saying that humor is when we end up discovering and solving a problem to a routine situation which leads to a feeling of mirth.
Of course humor is very subjective, much like how people have different perceptions of the same color. So, while I may see a certain humorous situation as red, someone else may be “color blind” to that situation and not see the same red that I do, which makes this topic even more fascinating and fun to ponder. This led many psychologists and researchers over the years to create various humor theories, and I thought it would be great to dive into how a couple of these theories of humor show up in advertising.
Superiority Theory
The superiority theory of humor is the “sudden glory” or triumph that results from the recognition that we have some level of superiority over some other target, or the “butt of the joke.” A great example of superiority theory in action is America’s Funniest Videos or any “fail” video compilation. We tend to laugh at others’ misfortunes because, from a third person perspective, we are comparing ourselves to the poor soul on those videos and saying internally, “Ha! At least I’m not that dumb.” We are experiencing a schadenfreude (pleasure in someone else’s misfortune) mentality. That’s why some sports fans gain just as much pleasure out of their rival team losing than their team winning.
The way superiority theory presents itself in advertising tends to look like this:
Here we see brands taking shots at other brands to make themselves look superior. In the early 2000s, Apple made the iconic “Mac vs PC” campaign that showed how PCs can be slow and boring compared to Macs, making Mac users feel superior to PC users, and convincing others to “switch teams” so they too can laugh at PC users’ misfortunes.
However, the shoe was then put on the other foot as Samsung started taking shots at the Apple iPhone. In their “Ingenious” spots, they poke fun at how the iPhone is inferior to the Samsung Galaxy, but the workers seem incompetent and try to avoid the thought that anything other than an iPhone is an option.
Superiority theory ends up rooting itself in tribalism or an “Us vs Them” mentality, so the brands that we support make us feel superior to others. And since laughter and joking can create social connections, laughing at others’ expense and feeling superior can lead to a tighter bond and a stronger sense of brand community.
Incongruity & Surprise Theories
Some other theories of humor come from a sense of surprise and realization of the “mistake” presented. The incongruity theory and its close relative, the surprise theory, state that humor is perceived at the moment we realize the incongruity between a concept involved in a certain situation and the real objects thought to be in some relation to the concept. The humor comes in when a perception of the world suddenly corrects our mistaken preconception. These theories really tie together the sense that, in humor, there is a deep relationship between the laughable and the illogical. As I mentioned earlier, our brains love to be on autopilot, System 1 thinking and tend to anticipate what will happen next, so showing the unexpected illogical or silly thing will throw us off, causing us to see the humor in the situation.
Take a look at this example from Old Spice
Personally, I love how Old Spice has become really weird. Here we have Terry Crews yelling the entire time, explosions going off, a tiger with human eyes and a mouth, and inside Crews’ armpit is another man with a bad wig lounging in a lawn chair. What kind of fever dream do you have to have to think this up? I am not sure, but this humor always gets me. You are thrown into this crazy world trying to understand it all and are left giggling at all the ridiculousness (at least I am). This weird and at some points incomprehensible humor has become prevalent in younger generations. And as attention spans shrink and six second ads or skippable ads become more prevalent in online advertising, it is becoming imperative to surprise and hook the viewer quickly to entice them to continue watching. There’s a lot of noise out in the world and disrupting that noise through humor can sometimes be the only way to break through.
There is no “best” theory of humor to utilize for advertising. Humor is an incredibly complex thing. There are thousands of emotional, environmental, and situational details that need to be accounted for in order for humor to hit the right funny bone. There is no special formula to plug and play when it comes to humor. All we know is that when that a joke lands just right, it can leave you rolling on the floor and waiting for more. As media and advertising continue to evolve, we expect the use of humor will become even more important and may become even more sophisticated.
Matt Hancher is a Senior Insight Manager at Olson Zaltman
