Humor Type

The impact of humor in advertising: a review.
Journal of Advertising
| December 01, 1992 | Weinberger, Marc G.; Gulas, Charles S. | ( Hide copyright information ) Copyright
----- and Harlan E. Spotts (1989), "Humor in US Versus UK TV Advertising," Journal of Advertising, 18 (2), 39-44.
----- and ----- (1992), "Differences in British and American Television and Magazine Advertising: Myth or Reality," (forthcoming) in Proceedings of the Association for Consumer Research: European Summer Conference, Gary J. Bamossy and W. Fred van Raaij, editors.
Weller, Leonard, Ella Amitsour, and Ruth Pazzi (1976), "Reactions to Absurd Humor by Jews of Eastern and Western Marc G. Weinberger (Ph.D., Arizona State University) is Professor of Marketing, Department of Marketing, School of Management, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts.
Charles S. Gulas (MBA Youngstown State University) is a Doctoral Student, Department of Marketing, School of Management, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts.

Introduction

Estimates of the use of humor in advertising suggest that as much as 24.4% of prime time television advertising in the US is intended to be humorous (Weinberger and Sports 1989). Research conducted by others has also indicated similar high (or even higher) levels of usage of humor in television ads (Kelly and Solomon 1975; Markiewicz 1972; Speck 1987) and in radio (Weinberger and Campbell 1991). While the use of humor is high, the efficacy of humor as a communications device remains uncertain. In attempts to delineate its impact, humor has proven to be very elusive. This lack of knowledge has led advertising copywriters and researchers alike to both praise and decry the effectiveness of humor in advertising as evidenced in the opening quotes.
The fact is that humor is a complex topic that has been experimentally studied by advertisers in several dozen studies over the past twenty-five years. Humor is a multifarious

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