Disparaging humour may take numerous forms and despite the emotional ambivalence it may occasionally cause, it may
prove a valuable quality of an ad. While investigating one hundred multimodal press ads in English that simultaneously make use of
metaphor and humour based on an incongruity-resolution mechanism, it was discovered that one-third thereof employed aggressive
humour as well (Stwora 2023). Given the high incidence of the aggressive function in
these ads, this paper explores this disparaging dimension in more detail to show that various shades of aggressiveness may be
perceived as a virtue when used in advertising discourse. The paper advocates a need to consider further sub-categorisations of
the aggressive function of humour when applied in advertising to reflect different hostility levels.