Gendering conversational humor in advertising: an evolutionary explanation of the effects of spontaneous versus canned humor

Abstract

In this paper, we rely on evolutionary psychology to examine how the use of spontaneous versus canned humor affects response to advertising among male and female consumers. The results of three experimental studies indicate that response to advertising varies as a function of the type of humor employed and the gender of the message recipient: women's responses to spontaneous humor are more positive than to canned humor, while men's responses are unaffected by humor type. The interactive effect is mediated by the perceived humorousness of the ad, and the message recipient's interest in pursuing romantic activities increases the effect on perceived humorousness. These results contribute to advertising research by providing an evolutionary explanation for gender-specific responses to humorous advertising.

Generating Science Buzz: An Examination of Multidimensional Engagement With Humorous Scientific Messages on Twitter and Instagram

“…Indeed, it has long been recognized that different communicative goals may be achieved through the use of varied types of humor (Speck, 1987;Weinberger & Gulas, 1992). Nevertheless, studies that have sought to demonstrate the attitudinal effects of exposure to varied types of humor have mostly focused on political humor (e.g., Becker, 2012;Holbert et al, 2011;Polk et al, 2009) or humor in advertising (e.g., Hoffmann et al, 2014;Ivanov et al, 2019), with few emerging from science communication (Yeo et al, 2020(Yeo et al, , 2021. Therefore, a finer-grained look at humor's use in science communication on social media, including the association between specific humor types and user engagement, is overdue.…”

How to craft humorous advertisements across diverse cultures? Multi‐country insights from Brazilian, Chinese and American consumers

“…Although marketing research on humour is abundant (e.g., Alden et al, 2000;Cline & Kellaris, 2007;Elpers et al, 2004;Ivanov et (Erdem et al, 2006;Hatzithomas et al, 2011;Lee & Lim, 2008). They further show that uncertainty avoidance and individualism (Hofstede, 1980) Our results suggest that advertising agencies should be aware that when designing humorous ads, no one size fit all.…”

“…The objective of this research is to investigate how two cultural dimensions, namely, individualism–collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, moderate the effectiveness of cognition‐ and affect‐based humorous ads on consumers from emerging and developed markets. Although marketing research on humour is abundant (e.g., Alden et al., 2000; Cline & Kellaris, 2007; Elpers et al., 2004; Ivanov et al, 2019; Kim & Plester, 2019; Strick, 2009; Warren & McGraw, 2016; Wang et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2019; Yoon & Lee, 2019), few studies incorporate both cognitive and affective elements in humorous ads and test them in a cross‐cultural context. Our study bridges such theoretical and practical gaps by examining the moderating role of culture dimensions on both the cognitive and affective aspects of humorous ads.…”

Would you share that? How the intensity of violent and sexual humor, gender and audience diversity affect sharing intentions for online advertisements

“…In this increasingly complex online arena, gender is one such audience-level variable that is frequently overlooked (Weinberger et al, 2017;Mayer et al, 2019). Gender has a direct effect on reactions to advertising (Weinberger et al, 2017), and Swani et al (2013), Yoon and Kim (2014), Warren et al (2019) and Ivanov et al (2019) establish that gender also plays a pivotal role in the mediation of perceived humor (PH) on attitudes towards advertisements and brands. However, despite the exponential rise in short-format video content designed for online social media advertising, most contemporary empirical studies on violent and sexual humor in advertising tend to be based on print advertisements, a very different environment compared to online video content (Ha and McCann, 2008).…”

“…Violent humor has become more prominent (Brown et al, 2010;Swani et al, 2013;Yoon and Kim, 2014;Gulas et al, 2019;Yoon et al, 2021), as witnessed in the Snickers "Betty White" advertisement depicting an old lady being body slammed to the floor going viral, Dollar Shave Club's online campaign, which included the depiction of men being tasered and forcefully punched in the crotch, and a Pepsi Max campaign depicting a man being electrocuted and thrown into the side of a trailer. The use of sexual humor is also on the rise (Das et al, 2015;Sparks and Lang, 2015;Ivanov et al, 2019). Recent examples include Volvo's depiction of happiness coming in the form of a phallic handbrake and Skittles' recent portrayal of a sex scene, exemplifying a stretching of boundaries regarding the use of sexual content in mainstream advertising.…”