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Humour effect on memory andattitude: moderating role of

product involvement

Hwiman ChungNew Mexico State University, Las Cruces

Xinshu ZhaoUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

This study examined the moderating effects of product involvement on the effects of humour on memory and attitude towards the advertisement by using multi-year survey (1992 to 1997) of responses to commercials shown during the Super Bowl. Positive andsignificant relationships between humorous advertisements on memory and attitude werefound through multiple regression analysis. Furthermore, results show that humorousadvertisements are more effective in low-involvement products in terms of memory andattitude towards the advertisement.

Due in part to the popularity of using humorous advertising campaigns (according to Weinberger and Spotts, 24.4% of prime-timetelevision advertising in the USA is intended to be humorous), theadvertising scholars have studied the effects of humorous advertising campaigns on advertising effectiveness (e.g. Markiewicz 1974; Cantor& Venus 1980; Belch & Belch 1983; Duncan et al. 1983; Gelb & Pickett1983; Sutherland & Middleton 1983; Madden & Weinberger 1984).

Sternthal and Craig (1973) drew some tentative but useful conclusionsabout the effects of humour on advertising by reviewing the early literature on humour in general, and Gelb and Pickett (1983) andSpotts et al. (1997) provide some theoretical discussions of how humorous advertising may affect consumers. These discussionsconsider the use of humorous messages, which can create somepositive (favourable) attitudes towards the advertised brand through atransfer of effect created by the ad to the brand. This transfer of

International Journal of Advertising, 22, pp. 117–144© 2003 Advertising AssociationPublished by the World Advertising Research Center, Farm Road, Henley-on-Thames,



effect has been proven by researchers in consumer behaviour (Ray &Batra 1983; Holbrook & O’Shaughnessy 1984; Mitchell 1986).

In terms of advertising effectiveness, numerous studies havesuggested that advertising liking could contribute to an advertise-ment’s effectiveness in terms of recall, brand preference or persuasion(Du Plessis 1994; Hollis 1995). As Du Plessis (1994) and Walker andDubitsky (1994) reported, commercial liking (or attitude towards thead) relates positively to advertising recall. One theoretical backgroundfor this relationship is that likeable or well-liked advertisements canaffect an individual’s information processing by creating positivearousal, increasing the memory of the advertised material, andcreating more favourable judgements of the advertisement message

(Edell & Burke 1986; Aaker & Myers 1987). Our purpose extends work in this research stream by considering the issues of productinvolvement. The primary focus of previous studies of the effects of humorous advertisements has been on attitude towards theadvertisement and memory. In this study, we include productinvolvement as a moderating variable to provide insight into thedifferences of humorous ads on subjects’ attitudes towards the ad andmemory. The purpose of the study is to add to the body of knowledgeregarding the effects of humorous advertisements on cognitive andaffective aspects of advertising effectiveness and productinvolvement. It is usually agreed among advertising practitioners that

we should not use humorous advertising for high-involvement prod-ucts because it may cause effects opposite to those we intended. It isimportant for advertising practitioners to understand what exacteffects humorous messages have, compared with non-humorousadvertising, because often the advertising objective is to get high recallfor an advertised brand by increasing the amount of attention. If,

indeed, humorous appeal is more effective in terms of grabbing attention, high recall and message comprehension, it will be mucheasier for advertising practitioners to develop an advertising message.

As some researchers argue that advertising studies which uselaboratory settings are weak in their ‘generalisability’ (see, for example,Zhao 1997), this study also tries to find the effects of humour onmemory and attitude in a natural television-watching environment.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING, 2003, 22(1)



BACKGROUND

How different message appeal in an advertisement relates to theeffectiveness of that advertisement is a long-standing and unsolvedquestion. Academic studies report inconsistent results on theeffectiveness of humour in ads, but the absence of systematicempirical results contrasts with humour’s widespread use (Markiewicz1974) and the intuitive belief of advertisers that humour in adsenhances persuasion (Madden & Weinberger 1984). Considerableanecdotal evidence suggests that humorous advertisements can beeffective in selling products in many diverse product categories such assoft drinks, cars and insurance (Markiewicz 1974). In addition,

research in advertising has investigated the effects of humorousadvertisements on many other response variables such as memory,advertising liking, brand attitude and purchase intention. Even thoughthere has been considerable research, the findings fail to show asystematic effect of humour on recall, recognition and ad liking.Furthermore, few studies have focused on the differences of humoureffects across product categories. A rule of thumb among advertising practitioners is to avoid humorous advertising for high-involvementproducts because the results may be counterproductive. Because theadvertising objective is often to get high brand recall through highattention, it is important that advertising practitioners understand theexact effects of humour appeal compared with non-humorousadvertising. If humour is indeed more effective at grabbing attention,supporting high recall and aiding message comprehension, advertising practitioners may be wise to add a few laughs to their advertising messages.

Researches about effects of humourIn 1973, Sternthal and Craig drew some tentative but useful conclu-sions about the effects of humour in advertising by reviewing the early literature on humour in general. Even though the literature they reviewed is small, and not specific to advertising, their conclusionsabout the often positive effects of humour eased the way for futurestudies on the effects of humour. After Sternthal and Craig’s study,Murphy and colleagues (1979) studied the effect of TV programme

types on the recall of humorous TV commercials. They found that theprogramme environments within which humorous ads appear affectth p rf r f b th d d it i t t f id d r ll Th

MODERATING ROLE OF PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT



found that overall ad recall is much higher for humorous ads than fornon-humorous ads. Unlike Murphy et al.’s study, which was done in alaboratory setting, Cantor and Venus (1980) tested the effect of humour in radio ads on memorability and persuasiveness in a quasi-natural setting. The results of their study also support the generalconclusions drawn by Sternthal and Craig.

Most advertising practitioners already used humorous advertise-ments to promote products and services. According to Markiewicz(1974), humorous advertising on TV and radio accounted for as muchas 42% of the total. A survey of executives in leading agenciesrevealed that 90% of the respondents believed that humour enhancesadvertising effects (Madden & Weinberger 1984). Further, it was

estimated that 24% of prime-time television advertising in the USAused humorous messages (Weinberger & Spotts 1989).

Madden and Weinberger (1982) studied the effects of humour onattention levels, but, unlike previous studies, they used magazineadvertisements to test the effects of humour. They also tested whetherthe potential heightening of attention is moderated by audiencefactors such as race and gender. They found that humorousadvertisements outperformed normal ads on each recall category.Gelb and Pickett (1983) tried to find out whether humour in an adinfluenced cognitive components (e.g. ad liking/disliking, attitudetowards ad, attitude towards brand, and purchase intention of advertised product), as well as attention and recall. They found arelationship between the perception of humour in an ad and a positiveattitude towards the ad, although the direction of causal flow isunknown. They also found a positive relationship between attitudetowards brand and perceived humour. However, the perception of humour in an ad was not related to purchase intention. Belch and

Belch (1983) found similar results. They found that humorousmessages are evaluated more favourably by the audience than seriousmessages, and they produce more positive perceptions of advertisercredibility, more favourable attitudes towards the ad, and morefavourable cognitive responses. However, attitude towards using theadvertised product (in this case the product was the services of Federal Express) and purchase intention were not affected differently by serious vis-à-vis humorous messages.

Lammers and colleagues (1983) also tried to understand the

persuasive effects of humour by using trace consolidation theory. They hypothesised that a more humorous message would increase




persuasion-related measures (cognitive responses and attitude) in thelong run. It was found that when cognitive response measures weretaken immediately after subjects were exposed to ad materials, there

was little difference between the serious and humorous ads. However, when cognitive response measures were delayed, the humorous appealproduced more cognitive responses than the serious appeal. It was alsofound that most of the increased cognitive activity came in the formof pro-argumentation. They concluded that humorous appeal may bemore effective than serious appeal because humour, in the long run,stimulates more favourable cognitive responses. Sutherland andMiddleton (1983) also tried to expand the effects of humour toinclude message credibility as well as recall. They found, however, that

although humour can attract audience attention, there is no differencebetween straight and humorous appeals in terms of recall of theadvertising message. Moreover, they found that straight messages aremore likely to be judged as credible than humorous messages and thatstraight messages have more authority than humorous messages. ThusSutherland and Middleton’s study produced totally different resultscompared with previous studies of recall and credibility.

Duncan and colleagues (1983) re-examined the effects of humouron advertising comprehension by focusing on type of humourmeasurement (manipulated vs. perceived) and humour location in theadvertisement. Their results also confirmed the results of previousstudies about the effects of humour on advertising comprehension.Duncan and Nelson (1985) also found that humour can increaseattention paid to an ad, improve advertising liking, reduce irritationexperienced from the commercial and increase product liking. Just asin previous studies, however, humour did not have any influence onpurchase intention. They concluded that humorous ads seem to be

more appropriate for generating awareness than for generating persuasion or purchase intention.Recently, advertising scholars used different approaches to study

the effects of humour by focusing on the role of moderating ormediating variables on the effects of humour, such as advertising repetition, prior exposure to ad messages and audience size. Zhang and Zinkhan (1991) studied the effects of humour in ads in relation toad repetition and size of audience. They found that humorous adstend to produce higher levels of perceived humour, positive brand

attitude and brand information recall. However, ad repetition has noinfluence on perceived humour and overall effectiveness of




advertising. Further, Zhang (1996) studied the effects of humour inprint ads using ‘need for cognition’ as a mediating variable and foundthat the effect of humour is moderated by individual differences inneed for cognition. Chattopadhyay and Basu’s study (1990) found thatthe effect of humour on consumer attitude and choice behaviour wasmoderated by the message recipient’s prior evaluation of theadvertised brand. Therefore, when prior brand evaluation is positive,humorous ads are more effective than non-humorous ads and vice

versa.In sum, previous research has failed to prove consistently superior

persuasive effects of humorous ads over non-humorous ads. Theabsence of empirical results contrasts with humour’s widespread use

in many different products (Markiewicz 1974) and the intuitive belief of advertising practitioners that humour in ads enhances persuasion(Madden & Weinberger 1984). Most studies measuring the effects of humorous ads on recall and comprehension suggest that findings aremixed; that is, some found positive effects and others found negativeeffects. However, most studies of source credibility and liking of source found that humorous ads have a positive influence. Finally,several studies found that humorous ads do not have a positive impacton choice behaviour, such as purchase intention.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Cognitive and affective effects of humour

Humour’s effects on the cognitive process have usually been measuredin terms of memory and comprehension. In advertising research, theemphasis has been on memory rather than on comprehension(Du Plessis 1994). Advertising researchers have identified recall andrecognition as processes that access memory traces of commercialmessages. Although the recall and recognition to measure advertising effectiveness is a long-standing debate (see Du Plessis (1994) for areview), the fundamental difference between the two is that recall ismeasured by asking subjects to specify the stimulus without aid,

whereas recognition is measured by asking subjects to identify whetherthey have seen or heard the stimulus before. Krugman (1986) argues

that recall and recognition measures are different in nature andsuggests that the advertising industry has failed to make thedi i i




There is no simple way to decide which method is most useful. Insome situations, advertising research requires either recall orrecognition measures; in other cases, both recall and recognition arerequired. The threshold theory posits that recall and recognitionmeasure the same memory but that recognition requires a lowerthreshold of familiarity (Kintsch 1970). However, according to thedual-process hypothesis (Anderson & Bower 1972), recall consists of two steps – memory search and recognition. In this sense, recognitionis a sub-process of recall. To recall items, a subject generates possiblecandidates for recall during the search process and then selects itemsthrough recognition. It is therefore a logical explanation thatrecognition is less sensitive than recall and understandable that

recognition scores are substantially higher than recall scores. Thus togain higher recall, a stronger encoding process and more frequentexposure is needed.

Humour’s effects on recall and recognition may be explained by operant conditioning theory. As Nord and Peter (1980) explain,operant conditioning occurs when the probability that an individual

will emit one or more behaviours is altered by changing the events orconsequences that follow the particular behaviour. Unlikeinformation-processing theory, operant conditioning views humour asa reward for listening to the advertising message (Phillips 1968).

Therefore, a humorous advertisement could be better understood andrecalled than a similar non-humorous advertisement because humour

was a positive reinforcement. This better memory may also beexplained by the positive impact of emotional arousal (effect) tomemory. Ambler and Burne (1999) posit that if consumers areemotionally aroused while watching commercials, those commercialsare more likely to be recalled by them. Thus they argue that advertising

with high affective components is more likely to be remembered by consumers. In this sense, it is possible that consumers can beemotionally aroused through watching humorous advertisements andthis emotional arousal in turn affects consumers’ memory overadvertisements. Another possible rationale for the effects of humouris Helson’s adaptation-level theory (1959), which deals with thecapacity of a stimulus to attract attention. Each stimulus that anindividual encounters becomes associated with an adaptation orreference level. Thus attention is attracted when the individual

perceives the focal stimulus to be plainly different from its referencestimuli. In this case, humour specific to an advertising context or




perceived as exceptional will be noticed because, in general, uniqueadvertisements are learned and recalled better than non-humorouscommercials. Therefore, the first hypothesis regarding the humoureffect is as follows:

H1: Degree of perceived humour in an advertisement will bepositively related to the unaided and aided recall.

As indicators of advertising effectiveness, Attitude towards the ad(hereafter Aad), Attitude towards the brand (hereafter Ab) andPurchase Intention (hereafter PI) are usually examined. Many studieshave reported Aad as a mediator of advertising effects on Ab and PI(Mitchell & Olson 1981; Lutz 1985; MacKenzie et al. 1986; Holbrook

& Batra 1987). In 1981, Mitchell and Olson first introduced the notionthat consumers’ choice behaviour is likely to be influenced by attitudetowards the advertising stimulus. Mitchell and Olson (1981) proposed,and found empirical support for, the mediational effects of attitudetowards the ad. They suggested that Aad should be considered asdistinct from beliefs and brand attitudes. Using a classical conditioning approach, they reasoned that the pairing of an unknown brand name(unconditioned stimulus) with a highly valenced visual (conditioned)stimulus probably causes the transference of affect from ad to brand.Researchers have since shown that Aad, which is defined as anaffective construct representing feelings of favourability/unfavourability towards the advertising itself, mediates the effects of advertising content on Ab and consumers’ Acb (Attitude towardschoice behaviour) (Mitchell & Olson 1981; Shimp 1981; Lutz 1985;MacKenzie et al. 1986; MacKenzie & Lutz 1989). This mediating roleof Aad has been found continuously in many other consumer studies(Belch & Belch 1983; Gelb & Pickett 1983; Park & Mittal 1985;

Zinkhan & Zinkhan 1985; Park & Young 1986; Zhang 1996).Recently, however, some studies have found the reverse relationshipbetween Aad and Ab (see e.g. Madden & Ajzen 1991). That is, in somecases, consumers’ prior attitudes towards the brand also influencepositively or negatively their attitudes towards the advertisement of that brand (Machleit & Wilson 1988). Thus, in a familiar brand,attitude towards the advertisement will be influenced by consumers’prior attitude towards the brand.

In the advertising area, the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF)

Copy Research Validation project has emphasised the role of ‘liking’ acommercial as an important evaluative measurement (Haley &




Baldinger 1991). The basic question relating to commercial liking is whether likeable advertising is inherently more effective than lesslikeable advertising. In broader terms, there are two primary rationalesto explain how ad liking might contribute to advertising effectiveness.

The first has to do with cognitive processing. If consumers like theadvertising they are more likely to notice and pay attention to the adsand more likely to assimilate and respond to the advertising message.

The second rationale has to do with affective response. According toLutz’s (1985) affect transfer model, if consumers experience positivefeelings towards the advertising, they will associate those feelings withthe advertiser or the advertised brand. Thus the more the ad is liked,the more positive feelings are created towards the brand. As seen in

previous studies, several advertising scholars have found thatperceived humour in an advertisement has an impact on the messagereceiver’s attitude towards the ad (Belch & Belch 1983; Gelb & Pickett1983). That is, the more humour the receiver perceives in theadvertisement, the more favourable attitude towards the ad thereceiver has. This finding is also confirmed by Chung and Zhao(2000). Thus the second hypothesis is suggested:

H2: Degree of perceived humour in an advertisement will be

associated positively with the attitude towards the ad.

Moderating role of product involvement

In the advertising research area, involvement has a long history. First,Krugman drew the involvement issue to the forefront of advertising research. Applying learning theory, Krugman (1965, 1977) found thatpeople remembered better those ads which were presented first andlast. Krugman (1965) argued that advertising actually had low levels of

involvement. He also operationalised the involvement as the numberof ‘bridging experiences’, namely connections or personal referencesper minute that the viewer made between his own life and theadvertisement. Since Krugman’s seminal argument about televisionadvertising, the construct of involvement has emerged as animportant factor in studying advertising effectiveness (Wright 1973;Krugman 1977; Rothschild 1979; Petty & Cacioppo 1981a, 1981b;Petty et al. 1981; Petty et al. 1983; Greenwald & Leavitt 1984). In these

studies, involvement usually refers to: personal relevance to themessage and product (Petty & Cacioppo 1981; Engel & Blackwell1982; Greenwald & Leavitt 1984); arousal interest or drive evoked by




a specific stimulus (Park & Mittal 1985); a person’s activation level(Cohen 1982); and goal-directed arousal capacity (Park & Mittal 1985;Park & Young 1986).

The variables proposed as the antecedents of involvement may bedivided into three categories. The first relates to the characteristics of the person, the second relates to the physical characteristics of thestimulus. Thus involvement will be different according to the types of media or content of the communication. The third category relates tothe situation. For example, the person’s involvement will be different if he or she watches the advertising when planning to buy that product.

These three categories are usually used for ascertaining involvement. Among these proposed antecedents, the second and third categories

were based on the assumptions that involvement is activated by external stimulus (Taylor & Joseph 1984).

Although involvement has been recognised as an interactionbetween individual and external stimuli, product involvement has beendefined as ‘salience or relevance of a product rather than anindividual’s interest in a product’ (Salmon 1986). Recently, researchersdivided product involvement into two distinct types. The first type issituational involvement , which reflects product involvement that occursonly in specific situations. The second type is enduring involvement , whichrepresents an ongoing concern with a product that transcendssituational influences (Houston & Rothschild 1978; Rothschild 1979).

All these constructs are focused mainly on the external stimulus ratherthan on an individual’s general interest in a product.

Analysing individuals’ common interest in a product is very important in the sense that marketers and advertisers need somebaselines to segment markets according to consumers’ productinvolvement. In this sense, the construct ‘product involvement’ has a

meaning that may be used for the majority of consumers. Therefore,the term ‘product involvement’ used in the business area has a very different meaning compared with those constructs that are focusedmainly on relations between individual and specific external stimuli.

‘Product involvement’ is often used interchangeably with ‘perceivedproduct involvement’ in the marketing literature (Kapferer & Laurent1985). The meaning and definition of ‘product involvement’ differacross researchers. For example, Cushing and Douglas-Tate (1985)defined ‘product involvement’ as ‘how the product fits into that

person’s life’ (p. 243). To them, product involvement is a sort of degree of importance to a person. To Zaichkowsky (1985), product




involvement is referred to as the relevance that individuals perceive inthe product’s values according to their own interests and needs.Similarly, Tyebjee (1979) describes product involvement as strength of belief about the product class, but others characterise involvement inthe product class as the relevance or salience of a product class toreceivers (Mitchell 1979; Greenwald & Leavitt 1984; Zaichkowsky 1985).

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (hereafter ELM: Petty &Cacioppo 1981a, 1986a, 1986b) posits that persuasion can occur viatwo routes – the central and peripheral routes. The central routerequires a person’s cognitive elaboration of advertising message(persuasive message in their studies), and the peripheral route occurs

in the absence of cognitive elaboration for those persuasivearguments. According to ELM, a person’s processing of informationdiffers by his or her level of involvement. When consumers have highMAO (Motivation, Ability and Opportunity) to process communi-cation, they are willing or able to exert a lot of cognitive processing effort, which is called high-elaboration likelihood.

On the contrary, when MAO is low, consumers are neither willing nor able to exert a lot of effort. However, a person’s elaborationlikelihood is also influenced by situational variables such as producttype. That is, a high-involvement product situation would enhance aperson’s motivation for issue-relevant thinking and increase a person’s‘elaboration likelihood’, so the central route to persuasion willprobably be induced. A low-involvement product situation wouldprobably create low consumer motivation to process information,

which leads to greater possibility of a peripheral route to persuasion. Therefore, we expect that a humorous message in an advertisement will work as a peripheral cue so that it is more effective for a low-

involvement rather than a high-involvement product. That is, aconsumer is less motivated to process information for a low-involvement product and is thus more likely to form an attitudetowards the ad based on peripheral cues such as a humorous messagethat we expect to function as a peripheral cue. Conversely, thehumorous advertisement is less likely to affect consumers with a high-involvement product since consumers are more motivated to expendcognitive processing effort for high-involvement products.

Thus the following hypotheses are suggested:




H3: Humorous ads will be more effective in a low-involvementproduct than in a high-involvement product in terms of attitude towards the advertisement.

H4: Humorous ads will be more effective in a low-involvementproduct than in a high-involvement product in terms of memory of advertised brand.

METHOD

Telephone survey The data on attitude towards the ad and memory were collected via atelephone interview and then aggregated across respondents.

Telephone interviews were conducted in Chapel Hill, North Carolinafrom 1992 to 1996, and in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1997. Threetelephone interview sessions were conducted from Monday through

Wednesday evenings following the Super Bowl games. Graduate andundergraduate students enrolled in research classes conductedtelephone surveys of local residents. Random-digit dialling was usedto include unlisted numbers. The interviewers asked for the person

who had the next birthday in the household. If a call yielded noanswer, the number was redialled at least three times before being discarded. No respondents knew beforehand that we would beconducting the interviews after the games, so the viewing situation

was completely natural.

Measurements

Wells and colleagues (1992) state that advertising plays severaldifferent roles: the marketing role, the communication role, theeconomic role and the societal role. However, these different roles areall based on the function of providing information for differentpurposes. Advertising imparts information that triggers consumerneeds, provides information for buyers and helps consumers make

wise decisions based on comparing product features. All purchasedecisions involve the memory of alternative brands. Therefore, a

rational, conscious brand choice decision depends on memories of thebrands. For this reason, all market or advertising research involvesf b i f h




important measurements for advertising effectiveness. Further, Attitude towards the ad (Aad) is a frequently employed measure of advertising effectiveness. Many studies have explored the role of Aadas a mediator of advertising’s Attitude towards the brand (Ab) (e.g.Mitchell & Olson 1981; Lutz et al. 1983; Lutz 1985; Edell & Burke1987; Holbrook & Batra 1987). And, the hierarchy-of-effects para-digm (e.g. Lavidge & Steiner 1961; Preston 1982) has also explored

Aad’s role in the purchase process.Following the traditional measurement for advertising effectiveness,

this study also measures memory and attitude towards theadvertisement as two important dependent variables.

MEMORY The unit of analysis in this study is each brand advertised during thegames. Memory was measured by unaided recall and aided recall.Following an instruction, interviewers asked each respondent whetherhe or she had watched the Super Bowl game, and which part. Those

who watched any part of the game were asked to list alladvertisements they remembered seeing during the game. Two coderscoded the response separately, which had been recorded verbatimduring the interviews. The two sets of results were in agreement in allbut one case (more than 99%). The unaided recall rates were thencalculated by dividing the number of respondents who recalled thebrand (Rü) by the number of respondents who watched the segment(s) in which the brand was advertised (W¾).

After the unaided recall measure, aided recall was measured.Respondents were given a list of brand names and asked if they remembered seeing an advertisement for that brand during the game.

The aided recall rate was then calculated by dividing the number of

respondents who said they remembered seeing an advertisement foreach brand (Gü) by the number of respondents who watched thesegment (s) in which the brand was advertised (W¾). Although thememory measure used here is not exactly the same as the day-afterrecall (DAR) used by advertising agencies or research companies, it hasbeen validated in a series of previous studies (Zhao 1997; Chung &Zhao 2000).

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE AD

The second dependent variable used in this study was attitude towardsthe ad In experimental design researchers have used several




dimensions to measure attitude towards the ad. For example, severalstudies have used a four-item index: good–bad, like–dislike, irritating– not irritating and uninteresting–interesting (Mitchell & Olson 1981;Gardner 1985; Mitchell 1986). Batra and Ahtola (1991) support theargument that attitude towards the ad is not only one-dimensional.Instead, they found two dimensions of attitude: hedonic andutilitarian. However, other studies have used only a one-item indexsuch as like–dislike or favourable–unfavourable (Burke & Edell 1986;Edell & Burke 1987).

For this study, we focused on the degree of advertising likeness.Our purpose was to find whether or not the perceived humour affectsadvertising liking. Therefore, it was unnecessary to measure other

dimensions of attitude in this study. Attitude towards the ad wasmeasured by asking those respondents who remembered seeing an adhow likeable or dislikeable they thought the ad was. Nine-point Likertscales ranging from 1 – ‘it was one of the best’ – to 9 – ‘it was one of the worst’ – were used. To facilitate interpretation (to obtain the samescale with unaided and aided recall), all the scores were linearly transformed to 0–100; here 100 represents the most likeable and 0represents the least likeable. Those scored were then averaged acrossrespondents for each brand for each year.

Independent variable

DEGREE OF HUMOUR

An independent variable for this study was perceived humour in anadvertisement. Some studies have found that different types of humour have different effects in terms of attention and memory (seee.g. Madden 1982; Speck 1991). For instance, Speck (1991) dividedhumorous messages into five different categories – comic wit,sentimental humour, satire, sentimental comedy and full comedy – andfound that the effects of humour ranged from strongly positive forfull comedy to an essentially null effect for sentimental humour. Somestudies used five- or six-item semantic questions to measure the degreeof humour in an advertisement. However, in this study humour wastreated and measured as a unitary form since we focused on only comic wit type of humour which is used most frequently inadvertising.

To measure the degree of perceived humour in each advertisementaired during the Super Bowl game, undergraduate students in a largeh i i d E h h i h b f d h




younger people are more likely than older people to rate advertise-ments as humorous and that younger people’s categories of humourare different from those of older people, students were used formethodological convenience since it was impossible to ask eachrespondent who watched the game and advertisement to rate thedegree of perceived humour in each ad.

All students watched the taped advertisements through a big screenin a computer laboratory room and rated the degree of perceivedhumour in an advertisement with a nine-point Likert scale (1 is leasthumorous and 9 is most humorous). In addition, to obtain the samescale as other variables, all degrees of perceived humour were linearly transformed to a 0–100 scale, where 100 represents the most

humorous and 0 represents the least humorous. Those scores werethen averaged across respondents for each brand for each year.

Moderating variable

PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT

For this study, the Foote, Cone and Belding (FCB) grid for 60common products (Ratchford 1987) was used as a guideline to dividethe products advertised during the game into two different categories:

high-involvement product and low-involvement product. Twograduate students were trained to categorise the products according toan FCB grid for 60 common products. Each worked independently and categorised all products advertised during the game according tothe same FCB grid for 60 common products. After finishing categorising the products, they exchanged their work and checked

whether there were differences. In fact, almost all the productsadvertised during the Super Bowl game are within the range of 60common products or similar products to those of 60 commonproducts used by Ratchford (1987). Therefore, no problem exists withregard to categorising products according to the FCB grid.

Control variables

There are several other variables that can explain significant amountsof variance in the dependent variables, such as ad frequency. A brandthat places more ads should be more likely to influence the dependent

variables (in particular memory), and this is also more likely to

truncate the effects of humour in ads. Even though several scholarshave found that attitude towards the ad decreased with increased




advertising exposure (high frequency) (Messmer 1979; Burke & Edell1986; Machleit & Wilson 1988), ‘mere exposure’ theory posits thatpeople are likely to give higher attitude ratings to the repeated exposedstimuli. Further, higher frequency is likely to be associated with bettermemory. Ad frequency is therefore controlled in the regressionanalysis as a continuous variable. We also considered the variable ‘year’as another confounding variable, since we recognised that when wepooled the data there was a chance that differences between yearscould confound the effects of humour in each ad during the SuperBowl game. We therefore created five dummy variables, year 1993through year 1997 (1992 serves as a comparison).

RESULTS

Data screening

The data were analysed through Systat version 9.0 and were screenedbefore the analysis began. The results found no severe univariateoutliers. Though descriptive statistics found the unaided recall to behighly skewed, it is natural and reasonable to expect a highly skewed

recall score (Jin & Zhao 1999; Chung & Zhao 2000). Since regressionanalysis is very sensitive to outlying cases, all the statistics for finding outlying and influencing cases were worked out. Apart from unaidedrecall, there were no significant outlying and influencing cases in termsof leverage, studentised deleted residual, and Cook’s distance (see

Appendix for details). In terms of unaided recall, one case was identi-fied as a highly influencing case. However, because the percentage of Cook’s distance for this case (17.8%) belongs to moderate range (10 to50%: Neter et al. 1999), this case was not deleted from the dataset.

Descriptive statistics for data

Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the dependent variables – memory and attitude towards the ad – independent variable,moderating variable and control variable. The highest score forunaided recall was 87% and the lowest was 0, and the mean was6.54%. For aided recall, the highest brand had 78.31% and the lowestbrand had 8.61%, with a mean of 29%. The least favourable brandshad an attitude score of 35% and the most favourable brands had anattitude score of 92%. For the dependent variable, the least humorous




commercial had 6 points and the most humorous commercial had 92points in terms of degree of humour.

Hypotheses tests

HYPOTHESES 1

The first hypothesis proposes a positive relationship between ahumorous advertisement and subjects’ memory of an advertisedbrand. Using degree of humour as an independent variable, simpleregression was done to check the relationship between memory andhumour. As hypothesised, humour and memory have a positive

relationship (Table 2).Simple regression shows the significant regression model ( p <0.001), and regression coefficients were both significant ( p < 0.001)and positive for unaided and aided recall. Total variations that can beexplained by an independent variable were 22% for unaided recall and26% for aided recall. Humour effect on memory was furtherinvestigated including control variable such as frequency. In thisanalysis, we also included dummy coded year variables since there is apossibility that a different year has a different degree of humour.


TABLE 1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTIC FOR VARIABLES

Min Max Mean SD Median Skewness Kurtosis

Attitude towardsthe ad 35.00 91.57 58.45 8.98 57.54 0.279 0.958

Unaided recall 0.00 87.00 6.54 16.42 0.00 3.336 11.168 Aided recall 8.61 78.31 29.00 14.92 24.42 1.172 1.028 Ad frequency 1.00 7.00 1.61 1.12 1.00Humour 6.64 91.01 50.45 21.47 47.27 0.142 –1.041

TABLE 2 HUMOUR EFFECTS ON UNAIDED AND AIDED RECALL

Unaided recall Aided recall

Coefficient Beta Coefficient Beta

Constant –11.632 10.931***Humour 0.360*** 0.471*** 0.358*** 0.515***

Total R² 0.222 0.266 Adjusted R² 0.219 0.263

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001



Humour including those control variables was also regressed on bothunaided and aided recall (Table 3). As expected, degree of humour ina commercial related positively to both unaided and aided recall aboveand beyond the control variables.

Year variable (1992 was used as a comparison year) shows nosignificant effect on dependent variable, which means no significantdifferences among different years. Also, as expected, ad frequency hasa positive relationship with memory and ad frequency itself explains30% and 27% of total variations for unaided and aided recall, respec-tively. Humour effect, when control variables were included, becamesmaller (10% for unaided recall and 15% for aided recall), but still had

significant and positive coefficients for memory. Therefore, the firsthypothesis suggesting a positive relationship between memory andhumour was supported.

HYPOTHESES 2

The second hypothesis also proposes a positive relationship betweenhumour and attitude towards the advertisement. Following simpleregression of humour on attitude, multiple regression including control variables was also run (Table 4). As shown in the table,humour itself explains almost 9% of variation in attitude towards theadvertisement and had a significant positive coefficient for attitude


TABLE 3 HUMOUR EFFECTS ON UNAIDED AND AIDED RECALL

INCLUDING CONTROL VARIABLES

Unaided recall Aided recall

Constant –18.707 6.015**1993 0.419 0.164 1.188 0.0301994 3.742 0.089 –0.879 –0.0231995 –0.307 –0.007 –0.002 –0.0011996 2.348 0.050 1.253 0.0301997 2.063 0.049 –0.557 –0.015Frequency 6.593*** 0.451*** 5.415*** 0.408***Humour 0.261*** 0.341*** 0.280*** 0.404***

R² by year 0.009 0.002

R² by frequency 0.298*** 0.271***R² by humour 0.106*** 0.149*** Total R² 0.414 0.422 Adjusted R² 0.400 0.408

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001



towards the advertisement. Unlike for memory, ad frequency explainsonly 1% of variation but it was significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 2,suggesting positive relations between attitude and humorous message,

was also supported by the data.

HYPOTHESES 3 AND 4

Hypotheses 3 and 4 predict the possible moderating effect by productinvolvement. In this study, product involvement was not measureddirectly from surveyed individuals. Instead, categorical productinvolvement was used. That is, advertised products were categorised

into high-involvement and low-involvement products based on afrequently used FCB grid. Further, to test hypotheses 3 and 4, theamount of effect of humour on memory and attitude was comparedfor high- and low-product involvement. Table 5 shows the amount of total variations explained by humour across high- and low-productinvolvement. As shown in the table, humour explains many more

variations in low-product involvement. In terms of unaided recallthere are 11.1% differences between high and low-productinvolvement, and for aided recall there are almost 13% differences. Forattitude towards the ad, a humorous message explains 10% morevariations in low-involvement products.


TABLE 4 HUMOUR EFFECTS ON ATTITUDE TOWARD THE AD

INCLUDING CONTROL VARIABLES

Unaided recall

Constant 51.119***1993 1.815 0.0761994 –0.512 –0.0221995 0.557 0.0221996 –0.223 –0.0091997 1.070 0.047Frequency 0.267 0.033Humour 0.128*** 0.305***

R² by year 0.005

R² by frequency 0.014*R² by humour 0.085*** Total R² 0.105 Adjusted R² 0.084

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001



CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION

This study examined the relationship between a humorous advertise-ment and memory and attitude, and the role of product involvementin this relationship. Overall, strong positive relationships were foundbetween a humorous advertisement and memory of advertised brandand attitude towards the advertisement. Further, it was found thatthose positive relationships were much stronger within low-involvement products than within high-involvement products.

All the research hypotheses were supported in our data. The simpleand multiple regressions for hypotheses 1 and 2 show that humour ina television commercial does appear to have some positive effects on

unaided and aided recall and attitude towards the ad. Our findingsimply that most humorous advertisements during the 1992 to 1997Super Bowl games did a good job in these respects.

As the advertising environment has become increasingly crowded,humour in advertising appears to be playing a larger role in helping adsstand out. In addition, most previous studies were done in forcedexposure environments using print ads (two researchers usedtelevision ads in forced exposure); therefore, the subjects’ attentionlevels could have been higher than in a natural television viewing

situation. The fact that we allowed attention to vary naturally in ourstudy may partially explain the larger effects we observed. We mighttherefore infer that the ‘believers’ in humour advertisements are right.Indeed, despite the contradicting opinions of other researchers andadvertisers, it can be a powerful tool for attention-grabbing in somesense since research has suggested that enhanced attention leads tomore extensive processing, which in turn leads to higher memory (Petty & Cacioppo 1985).

These findings have some practical implications for advertising practitioners. First of all, using humorous advertisements will be moreeffective in the highly cluttered environment of broadcasting in


TABLE 5 MODERATING EFFECTS OF PRODUCT INVOLVEMENT

Unaided recall Aided recall Attitude towards ad

R² by humour² R² by humour R² by humour

High involvement 3.5*** 4.1*** 2.1***Low involvement 14.6*** 16.9*** 10.3***

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001



particular television, to win higher attention from the audience and tofurther increase memory of the brand and a favourable attitudetowards the advertisement. Humorous advertisements worked well forgaining favourable attitudes from the audience, and worked well evenfor increasing memory of the advertised brand. Scholars have foundthat affective reaction to stimulus will increase attitude both towardsthe ad and towards the brand. Even though this study did not measureattitude towards the brand, it seems possible that humorousadvertisements can elicit a favourable attitude towards the advertise-ment and further increase favourable attitude towards the advertisedbrand (Batra & Ray 1985; Edell & Burke 1986). A second implicationis related to the role of product involvement. Findings suggest that

even though the effects of humour were statistically significant in bothhigh- and low-involvement products, the effects of humour in high-involvement products were small and marginal.

As expected, humorous messages work very well in low-involvement products. This phenomenon may be explained fully by ELM; that is, humorous messages can serve as a peripheral cue and

work better only in a low-involvement situation. Therefore, advertising practitioners should be very cautious about using humorousadvertisements for high-involvement or high-risk products. In somesense they can be distracting elements for those who have high-product involvement.

Limitations

Several limitations should be considered in interpreting the findings of this study. First, this study did not consider the effects of newscoverage on brand recall and recognition. Jin and Zhao (1999) suggestthat news coverage can explain more than 70% of the variance for

brand recall and 60% of the variance for brand recognition. That is,brand recall and recognition are influenced heavily by news coverageof the advertised brand. In this context we should consider thecharacteristics of the Super Bowl game. Because the Super Bowl is themost visible advertising event and has tremendous media coverage,Super Bowl advertising also draws special media attention. Therefore,Super Bowl advertising will have wide media coverage before it isaired; thus the higher recall and recognition score may be due in part

to the media coverage received. Second, in this study humour wastreated and measured as a unitary form. However, as Speck (1991)pointed out different types of humour may have a different humour




type effect. Third, recall and recognition rates may have been affectedby ads aired either before or after the Super Bowl game. Some nationaladvertisers use new advertisements only for the Super Bowl, whileothers rerun their famous or favourite advertisements during theSuper Bowl. Fourth, brand familiarity may be an important variablethat can influence dependent measures. More familiar brands are morelikely to be remembered. Fifth, methodological concerns may existbecause we used university students to rate the humorous advertising,

while recall and recognition and ad liking were measured among city residents. It was found that younger people are more likely than olderpeople to rate advertisements as humorous and that younger people’scategories of humour are different from those of older people. These

differences may work against our positive findings between humorousadvertisements and memory and attitude.

APPENDIX: SCREENING DATA

To see whether there are outlying and/or heavily influencing data,leverage, studentised deleted residual, and Cook’s distance were used

to evaluate the outlying and influencing cases in the data.First, the average leverage was calculated for all three variables. Average leverage for unaided recall, aided recall, and attitude towardsthe ad was 0.0705 (11/156), so it was considered larger in terms of leverage if the leverage of case exceeds twice the average leverage.

Therefore, several cases were identified as having high leverage.However, those cases had smaller leverage than 0.5 (usually consideredas a cut point; see Neter et al. 1999). So in terms of leverage no case

was identified as an outlying case.

Second, the studentised deleted residual (defined as ti = di /s {di }) was calculated to see whether there was any outlying case. Bonferroni-corrected critical value at α = 0.05 was 2.998. In unaided recall, 6 cases

were identified as having bigger score in terms of studentised deletedresidual, but in other variables, no case was identified as having biggerscore.

Finally, the Cook’s distance was calculated, and the corresponding percentile to the value of Cook’s score was used to see whether there

was a heavily influencing case. As a general rule of thumb, the casethat had more than 50% of Cook percentile was used as a majorinfluencing case (see Neter et al 1999) All the cases identified as




outlying case in terms of leverage and studentised deleted residual were not major influencing cases in terms of Cook. All the cases haveCook’s percentile less than 50%, the largest percentile among cases

was only 17.8% (Cook’s distance 0.202). Therefore, no one case wasdeleted for final analysis.

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Hwiman Chung received his Ph.D. from the University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked as an ad agency accountexecutive, handling diverse clients ranging from a cosmetic company to an airline. His major interest is in consumer behaviour in the new media environment, with a particular focus on structure and designissues in www advertising.

Xinshu Zhao received his Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin,Madison. His areas of research interest are Super Bowl advertising,public opinion, and consumer behaviour in the new mediaenvironment. His research papers have appeared in many industry

journals.


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