Comedy in Television Commercials
Humor has been used in much of prime-time television advertising in the United States, potentially to grab viewers’ attention in order to sell a product. Thus, there may be many benefits to adding humor to television ads. Humor has the power to create a positive mood, increase comprehension, and capture a viewer’s attention. These effects can make advertising more effective, but they also come with several risks.
Humor is used to create a positive effect, because presumably consumers who are in a good mood are more receptive to a persuasive message (Weinberger & Gulas). Dr. Lee Berk, a professor at Loma Linda University, studied the effects of laughter for over three decades. He describes the positive effects of laughter and suggests that laughter “appears to cause all the reciprocal, or opposite, effects of stress.” (Heid 2014) He has found that laughter shuts down the release of stress hormones like cortisol, while simultaneously triggering the production of feel-good, calming, anti-anxiety neurochemicals like dopamine. He described laughter as the “yin to stress’s yang” (Heid 2014). Thus, infusing laughter into television commercials has the potential to infuse some positive responses.
Furthermore, humor is used frequently within televisions commercials. It is estimated that 24.4% of today’s prime television commercials contain humor. (Weinberger & Gulas) Another study showed that 94% of advertising practitioners use humor as a way to gain the viewers’ attention in commercials. (Weinberger & Gulas) Madden and Weinberger conducted studies in magazine advertisements, television advertisements, and radio advertisements to discover if humor can be seen as a positive effect on the audience. Speck the author would compare the humorous advertisements to the non-humorous advertisements using the four attentions; initial attention, sustained attention, projected attention, and overall attention. As Bryant and Zillman have seen a lot of studies about how this is a positive effect of grabbing the viewers’ attention, however both Bryant and Zillman caught that “unqualified direct evidence for the effects of using humor in non-mediated classroom instruction is still wanting” (Weinberger & Gulas pg. 36). To summarize, by using these ways to grabs the viewers’ attention will make them buy the product.
Although some studies have found positive effects, others have found negative effects in seventeen experiments that attempted to measure the effects of humor on comprehension. There are three factors that explain this lack of agreement. The first reason is that there is a lack of consistent definition of comprehension. This depends on the quality of television people watch which leads to an indication of comprehension. Secondly, different types of humor will affect a viewer’s comprehension in different ways. Speck, who conducted this study, also stated that the worst advertisements did not have enough logical sense. It also might describe the message differently than it was originally planned by the producers. Lastly, the type of product advertised appears to play a big role in the humor of comprehension. It’s how the product factor composes of two dichotomies: actual versus fictional and the high versus low involvement. (Weinberger & Gulas pg. 36) As shown above, there can be some positive and negatives commercials using humor to grab the attention from the viewers.
Companies make commercials use humor in them with these three points. Firstly, the companies use techniques to find what the viewers dislike or like about the commercials. The companies would do a study on what the viewers might not like, and then change it with. When the companies would change up the commercial, they would grab viewers’ attention more with adding new things. For example, on how the companies will target the viewers to buy their product by using humor in their commercials. Another example is that the company will often attempt to make a commercial memorable through humor. Secondly, companies use strategies by attracting the customers to buy their products. The viewers will pay more to watch a commercial that has humor than a commercial that is serious or factual. Marketing teams have to find a delicate balance by giving the public an advertisement. Companies could trick people more by using food in the commercial to attract the people to the store. The companies use candy, food, alcohol, tobacco, toys, and entertainment for their product. Companies will benefit to be humorous in their campaigning. For example, Taco Bell campaigned a series “Yo Quiero Taco Bell” and the star was a Chihuahua who was passionate about Taco Bell by repeating the company’s name. When people are watching commercials, it may have different things that are funny to different people. One commercial might attract one person with laughter, but could also leave a bad taste in a different person’s mouth.
In any case, understanding how a commercial has been filmed can also help show the humor in it. HBO, a popular television station, is known for having some of the funniest advertisements. These advertisements were directed by David Shane who is brilliant in his field. “The best thing in the world is when a joke can live its natural life without being artificially manipulated,” says Shane (Beer pg. 5). Shane likes to find ways to mine the story for specific moments in commercials to find the attraction for viewers. “Nobody tells their friends the plot of a movie over and over, but they do quote lines and specific scenes all the time. So, the first thing I’m doing is looking for that or the possibility of that in a script. Moments are about real human behavior. People laugh because they recognize themselves in what they’re watching” (Shane pg. 8). Given these points about HBO that is directed by David Shane shows us how HBO do their commercials that includes humor to know that the audience are getting the message.
As a final point, humor in the United States versus United Kingdom has comparisons for their television commercials. There are also some good and bad qualities with commercials that include humor in them. When watching television advertisements, the commercials may make you laugh so hard it feels like someone is tickling you. The United States has it differently than the United Kingdom commercials, but have some comparisons. There are two reasons to focus on the United States and United Kingdom issue. The goal out of these two issues from a survey that people took by seeing a difference from the two countries including humor in the commercials whether this relates to tactical use of humor and using samples from these two different countries. The first reason is the British and America is that their advertisements compare by having the viewers watch them and seeing if the advertisements have humor. The second one is showing how commercials between two different countries that indicate if they have the application part that includes humor in it. The background that the British use and Americans use humor for their viewers to watch the commercials. There was a study done by Stewart and Furse (1986), Ogilvy and Raphaelson (1982) between these two countries saying the companies support the humor in the commercials by using objectives for their product and other applications that would work for the viewers to get the message. Another survey that Madden and Weinberger did for the viewers and practitioners to see if the United Kingdom compared advertisement by matching the United States commercials. Kelly and Solomon would investigate both countries humor commercials with using the context to get the message out by including thoughts and feelings of the viewers watch.
Next in order, commercials can have good or bad qualities that include humor which are these three reasons. First, why do funny television commercials work for viewers to buy the product? Quite simply, humor grabs the attention of the viewers. Neuroscience say it attracts people’s attention by having loud sounds, and images because the companies taught the viewers to be afraid of the message that is getting across to them. Another way to grab viewers’ attention is for them to watch the television commercials and elicit good feelings. They enlisted a negative spark for the advertisement to get more of their attention. To say, in commercials there can be the downside of trying to be funny to grab the audience attentions with a joke. It can be hard to put humor into television commercial because of how everyone might not react to the same funny joke. There was a commercial if you remember called “deliberately inappropriate Groupon ad” that caused a great deal of controversy during last year’s NFL Super Bowl. Towards the end of making jokes in commercials that might offend people may overwhelm the brand of the campaign.
Thirdly, does humor in commercials help sell more to viewers? “Don’t treat your subject lightly. Don’t lessen respect for yourself or your article by any attempt at frivolity. People do not patronize a clown. There are two things about which men should not joke. One is business, one is home. An eccentric picture would ruin his selling damage. One may gain attention by wearing a fools cap. But he would ruin his selling prospect” (Hopkins pg 1&2). Companies use humor in commercials because it shows a positive relationship to the viewers and companies to buy their product more. Companies also think that if you buy from them with using humor in their commercials then it will be easier to get the product to the audience. For example, sever razor companies utilize “Movember”, that is “Mustache November” to inject humor into their sale campaigns. The company Dollar Shave Club employs this campaign in online social media ads targeted at young men. Another example, is for coffee machines. One company called NESPRESSO recently aired a commercial in which a man is seeking to buy a premium coffee machine, but as he walks outside a piano falls on his head. Suddenly, he is in heaven talking to God, who incidentally wanted the coffee machine he was after — and sent the piano falling for a reason. Companies truly strive to solidity audience’s attention by making commercials funny.
Lastly, the Super Bowl contains many examples of humorous commercials. Companies often spend millions within a thirty-second segment to attract their customers’ interest. The companies seek to make their customers feel comfortable to buy their products. There can be some companies that can trick you to get their product, but those are more serious commercials. For example, if you want to buy a car there are many funny car commercials like ‘Star Power’. This commercial is about a woman who drives around and saves the environment. She receives calls on her speaker in the car for people in the world to not text and drive at the same time. Another example, is a man who traveled from one boat to another boat to another boat because his boats continually were set on fire. Then he got on a boat that was safe and made it to St. Louis to achieve his goal for getting a beer and showing the American people a kind of beer I drink from. (Staff pg.) To conclude, with these four points about good or bad qualities about commercials will show you how this might help the viewer to know if they think it’s funny.
In conclusion, humor can grab the audience’s attention in television commercials and encourage them to buy more products. The positive feelings engendered in the viewer during this process are key for the psychological decision making of purchasing a product. However, companies must proceed with caution when employing humor so as not to offend or patronize their customers.
Reference:
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