Report

On
Integrated Market Communication
Subject:
Research on Use of Humour in Advertisement
Submitted to:
Dr.Shaheera Amin
Submitted by:
Umair Saeed BBA-13-07
Amir Ali BBA-13-13
Muhammad Babar BBA-13-26
Dawood Shafiq BBA-13-34
Muhammad Jamal BBA-13-41

Semester
th
7 (Morning)

Session (2013-2017)

Department of Business Administration

Bahauddin Zakariya University Sub-Campus Sahiwal

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

 Acknowledge

At first we are thankful to Almighty ALLAH and the Holy Prophet (P.B.U.H)
their blessings have been having with me in all good and bad times.

Then we are grateful for the thorough support by my advisor Dr.Shaheera

Amin for helping undetermined the objective of the report and guiding me though
to get to the end. She made us grateful with her valuable suggestions from time to
time during my research.

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

ABSTRACT:

Every day people are exposed to a large amount of television advertisements. There
are thousands of products on the market and it would be interesting to find out why
we respond to certain advertisements and not to others. We thought that it could be
interesting to concentrate on humorous advertisements since they are a great part of
advertising today. Therefore the purpose of this research is to provide a better
understanding about use of humour in advertisement. The extent of the research
was to look either audience influence by use of humour appeal in advertisement or
not. We have made a qualitative research where the data was collected through
primary resources.

The results show that there are different products that are more or less appropriate
for television advertising. The results also showed that there are some big benefits
with using humour in television advertising, but there are some considerations that
have to be thought of.

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

Introduction & literature Review:
The media environment has changed dramatically in recent years. Traditional advertising
media such as TV, magazines and newspapers are losing their power on catching
consumers. Instead, online advertising, such as web banner, social media marketing, mobile
advertising are gaining power and growing rapidly. With the power of internet connections
and ubiquitous mobile devices, advertisers are forced to rethink and create on-line approach
practices to be going viral. Humorous advertising is a good tool to use in internet and mobile
environments for going viral. When advertisement makes audiences laugh, they are more
likely to want to share it with others. Thus, humorous appeals are the means by which
marketers attempt to inform, persuade and remind consumers, directly or indirectly, about
the brands they market.

Every day people are exposed to a large amount of television advertisements. There are
thousands of products on the market and it would be interesting to find out why we respond
to certain advertisements and not to others. We thought that it could be interesting to
concentrate on humorous advertisements since they are a great part of advertising today.
Therefore the purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of humour.

Advertising could be used to make the target audience aware of the existence of a product
or service, and the benefits it confers to customers. Advertising is a part of the promotional
mix that also includes trade promotions, sales promotions, personal selling and sales
management. (Clow & Back, 2002).

According to Fugate (1998), the frequency with which humor appears and the enthusiasm of
its supporters is not always justified by empirical measurement of results. Serious studies on
humor suggest that the nature of the product, the medium, target audience factors, the
communication goal, the type of message and the placement of the message all influence
cognitive, affective, and behavioural responses of consumers in the marketplace. In the
broader sense, controlling for these antecedents is only a partial solution to humor research
since it is difficult to precisely define what humour is or is not.

He proposes that sense of humour is multidimensional and that it contains at least the
following six dimensions.

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

1. Humour production.

2 .A sense of playfulness

3 .The ability to use humor to achieve social goals

4 .Personal recognition of humour

5 .Appreciation of humour

6 .Use of humour as an adaptive mechanism

Stern (1996) further claims that individual and cross-cultural differences may influence.
Determinations of what is funny humor, like beauty, may be in the eye of the beholder.
Industry wisdom has produced caveats such as making sure that funny material does not
divert attention from the message, using subtle rather than gross humor, relating humor to
the product and integrating it with the message, avoiding humor that makes fun of the
consumer, and being alert to humours rapid wear-out. (ibid.)

According to Fatt (2002) humour is one of the criteria in awarding awards for the most
effective advertisements. However he continues, advertisers commonly make the mistake of
using humour just for the sake of using humour. (ibid.)

Businesses spend billions of dollars every year to create humorous prime time television
advertisements because advertisement practitioners believe that humour is an effective way
to gain attention in advertisements. Fat agrees with Weinberger & Gules that humour used in
magazine, television and radio advertisements has a positive effect on audience attention.
Humorous advertisements generally outperform non-humorous advertisements in four
categories: initial attention, sustained attention, projected attention, and overall attention.

However, there is a difference in effectiveness between related and unrelated humour.

Humour related directly to the advertised product works more effectively than unrelated
humour.

Thus, simply inserting humour into a given advertisement is unlikely to have the same
impact on attention as using a more integrated humour treatment. (Fatt, 2002)

Weinberger and Spots found that humorous advertising is more attractive than non-
humorous advertising and increases the brand memory of consumers, making consumers
feel good by being persuasive. In addition, Speck believed that different types of humorous
ads lead to different psychological reactions and produce various advertising effects. This

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

study used a method proposed by Li to classify humorous ads into: affectively humorous
ads, cognitively humorous ads, and socially humorous ads.

Research Methodology:

Here we use qualitative research design based on 10 questionnaires. We collect

data from 20 respondents against each advertisement

Participants:

The sample of the research was consisted on 20 participants who were selected
inside or outside of university.

Research design:

Here we use qualitative research design to collect the data.

Purpose of research.

The purpose of our research was to determine the target audience attitude and
response towards humorous advertisement.

Questionnaires:

We design a personal survey questionnaire that include a total of 20 questions. We

organize questions into following categories,

To check people opinion about humour in advertisement

To check either humour in advertisement generate quick response or not
To check effectiveness of humour appeal in advertisement
To check people attitude and interest towards humorous advertisement
Either brand name is clearly communicated in humour advertisement
Either people influence by use of humour in advertisement

We use descriptive method to get answer of these questions.

Data Analysis:
BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal
We analyse the research data with the intension of applying information learned
towards stated objectives. We distribute 20 questionnaires to get the answer of
respondents.

Following are the answers of the respondents:

1-What is your opinion about use of humour in advertisement?

Most of respondents was opinion that use of humour advertisement is more

important factor while making advertisement because humour appeal influence the
people and create more interest.

From our 20 respondents 16 people views in the favour of humours advertisements

while remaining argue that humours advertisement not fit in all the situations

2-Do you think humour advertisement help to generate quick response?

Sometimes funny advertisement really gernate quick response but sometimes it is

not easy to understand humours advertisement

From our 20 respondents 17 people views in the favour of humours advertisements

which create quick response while remaining argue that it is not easy to understand
advertisement and not generate quick response.

3-Do you think humour appeal can be effective in Ufone Advertisement?

Ufone add has its own importance because there is an accurate use of humour to
make advertisement effective it also depends upon nature and qualification of
audience.

From our 20 respondents 15 peoples accept the effectivity use of humour in

advertisement while other says it depends upon nature of advertisement

4-Use of humour in advertisement can increase interest and persuasiveness?

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

It depends upon how humour appeal effectively made which increase interest and
persuade audience. Demographic factor exist to increase the interest and
persuasiveness

From our 20 respondents 13 peoples who shows highly involvement in humour

advertisement and remaining argue that it depends upon creativity and situation.

5-Do you think use of humour in Miranda advertisement attract the audience?

Use of humour in humour advertisement could not attract more as compare to coke
and Pepsi advertisement here mostly respondents could not give views in the favour
of humour appeal in Miranda advertisement

6-Do you really enjoy Ufone advertisement on T.V?

Yes audience really enjoy ufone add because of donkey use in the add which makes
people laugh and joy

The result shows that 18 respondents really enjoy ufone advertisement on tv while
others not

7--What is your attitude towards Miranda advertisement?

The use of funny celebrity in Miranda add make positive attitudes towards Miranda
add the phrase Pagalpanti bi zarori hay attracts the audience 17 people have
positive response and remaining argue that we did not like Miranda add

8-What type of advertisement appeal do you think more effective for delivering
message?

Use of humour appeal in advertisement is more effective rather than fear appeal
because now a days people get more attention towards funny add and they like
humour appeal in most of advertisement

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

9-Is brand name clearly communicated in humour advertisement?

Due to lots of usage humour in advertisement the basic purpose might be dispersed,
and audience may not understand the brand name and advertisement objectives 16
people argue that brand name is not clearly define due to lots of fun

10- Do you think use of humour in Ufone advertisement help to increase

purchasing power

Yes, mostly people views that humours advertisement about ufone produts and
services specially ufone offers really help to increase purchasing power.

Conclusion:

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

Humour is a great tool for managements to use in advertising, there are strong benefits such
as it attracts attention and makes people remember the advertisement for a longer period of
time.

However, the different types of humorous ads have statistically significant differences
on various dimensions of brand communication. The humorous advertising of
affective has greater brand recall than those of the humorous advertisings of social
and cognitive. Furthermore, presenting an advertisement with humorous elements
can transfer the consumers positive perceptions on the advertising to the brand
itself, thus achieving effective brand communication.

I collect data from more than twenty respondents from different areas. There
suggestions are quite different from each other. Many of those argue that marketers
want to get attention of people thats why they use that type of humours
advertisement. Few of them argue that companies relate their products with
celebrities, events humour funny infrastructure because marketers want to memories
their product in the people minds. These names also create physiological factors in
the people mind to memories the product name. Few of them respondents also say
marketers just want to increase the sale, sometimes they ignore quality.

Most arguments of respondent are around about getting attention of people so, that
is the main reason of using those different names.

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal

Bibliography:

Akdebm D, L. H. (2005). dimension of humor in advertising. marketing.

Baron, R. M. (2007). Trust in ads brands. Marketing & Communication, 12, 38.

Barroso. (2008). Attitude behavior consistency. Advertising Research, 21, 29.

Cho, H. (2013). Humor mechanisims perceived humor and their relationship to

various types. A contigency approach, 26(3), 17.

Clow, K. (2007). intergrated advertisin, promotion and marketing communication.

General Psychology, 13, 6.

Duncan, C. (2011). A behavioral prospective. Acedmy of marketing science, 25,

1.

Fatt, T. (2007). imc and promotion. Impact on humor on advertisement, 14, 21.

gayatri, s. (2008). ads humor appeal in maganize. review of business, 22, 4.

Gelb, Z. &. (2011). The humor influence of product. Business and industrial
marketing, 10, 20.

khatri, p. (2010). a strategic promotion perspective.

M Hanif, S. H. (2010). Factor affecting customer satisfaction. Finance and

economics, 21(4), 35.

Shacar, B. A. (2009). Targeting advertiding as a singal. Marketing, 30, 37-38.

Shimp. (2010). imc in advertising and promotion. Marketing & Promotion, 11, 23.

Shimp, T. (2009). a series look at humor. Finance & Marketing, 10, 30.

Speck, P. (2008). on humor and humor in advertising. Advertising, 16, 6.

Tellis, G. (2009). Advertising and sale promotion strategy. General of Marketing,

13, 20.

Tellis, G. (2009). Advertising and Sales promotion strategy. 38, 5.

thooksoon, c. &. (2007). belief dimensions and viewers attitudes towaeds tv

adds. marketing studeis.

Unger, L. (2011). study on the affect based model of humar in advertising.

advertising research.

waiters, t. a. (2009). alchohal advertising and youth.

Weingberger, G. (2013). impact of humor in advertising. Marketing & Research,

15, 30.
BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal
Weingberger, G. G. (2006). the impact of humor advertising. advertising, 10, 08.

Appendix:

BZU Sub-Campus Sahiwal