Humor is universally
accepted as a tool that
makes people think and smile at the same time.
Great messages have been created using humor. Authors and
playwrights have used it time and again to create memorable comedies for
everyone to enjoy. It is not surprising that advertising, a powerful weapon
to communicate, has also used humor to sell a wide spectrum of
products. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines humor as a "form
of communication in which a complex, mental
stimulus illuminates, or amuses, or elicits the reflex of laughter". Humor is
a multidimensional phenomenon having varied facets, some of
which are comic wit, sentimental humor, satire, sentimental comedy
and comedy (Speck 1990). It is this versatility about humor which
ad makers exploit to transform commonplace into
something exotic that stands out to create the intended impact. More often
than not, effective deployment of humor can be gainfully utilized
in advertising to engage all segments of the intended audience, which
is typically a challenging proposition.
Advertisements are
persuasive texts intended to influence the consumer behavior. By and large,
the advertisements strive to target consumer attitudes towards
a product as advertisements cannot determine the behavior directly.
In the midst of the clutter and saturation in the advertising
world, commercials today focus more on taking advantage of the
consumers emotional attention rather than deliberating on the attributes of
the products. Ad makers use different strategies to appeal emotionally
to the viewer/reader (consumers). The overwhelming desire to strike
an emotional chord with the prospective customer is
in realization of the fact that there is greater likelihood of the
positive feelings generated about the advertised product to be
converted into buying behavior. In this context, humor provides the
most compelling strategy to evoke positive feelings about a product. |
