Towards enhancement, distraction or oblivion – studying the impact of humorous language in advertising

Advertising messages in general are said to be capable of producing telling effects on the audience, ranging from purely informative to persuasive or even manipulative. However, there is no lack of disagreement when it comes to the impact of humorous ads on brand and product recall. Some researchers demonstrate that humour in advertising can serve as a potent mnemonic device while others disprove such claims by producing evidence about humour’s hampering effect on brand recall. The aim of this chapter is to advance current understandings of the humorous language of advertising and its relationship to practice in terms of ad recall. To this end, a survey checking how humorous language affects memory for ads was conducted among a group of students with a view to determining whether or not the humorous factor tends to augment or enfeeble recall. Moreover, it was also designed so as to inspect the informants’ attitudinal responses to a sample of press and internet ads, as well as to spotlight the types of humorous language therein used and evaluate them in terms of effectiveness.