1. Humor and Fluency
in advertising

2. What happens when you see an ad like this
What happens when you see an ad like this? You will probably find it funny, because of the word joke in there. We know from earlier studies that humor increases positive affect and also leads to a positive attitude towards the ad. One of the explanations is that humor uses cognitive resources that are unavailable for generating counterarguments, or in this case, to read the ad critically.

3. Another strategy that is often used, is to make ads as fluent as possible, for example by using rhyme. Fluency feels good and therefore also leads to a positive attitude towards the ad. One of the explanations is that fluency is easy to process and thus does not use many cognitive resources.

4. So what now if these two come together
So what now if these two come together? It is clear that there will be positive affect, but what about resistance? Will people have cognitive resources left to scrutinize the ad and think critically about it?
Or, and that’s an alternative hypothesis, will the positive affect make them lazy and not want to use their resources in any case? Then we should even find no resistance in the fluency condition.

5. Humor Fluency Humor and Fluency positive affect  positive attitude
resources need to ‘solve’ joke  no resources for resistance
resources need to ‘solve’ joke  worse brand memory
Fluency
easy to process  positive attitude
easy to process  resources left for resistance?
brand memory?
Maybe a humorous and fluent ad can prevent the vampire effect, such that there are resources left to attend to the brand, leading to better brand memory.

6. Master thesis projects with different manipulations and measurements
Fluency
DV’s
Iris Leijten
familiar or unfamiliar font
attitude, counter argumentation
Tim Brinkman
rhyme
implicit attitude, brand memory
Mirte van de Ven
attitude, brand memory, intention to follow advice
Hidde Vlasblom
attention to ad (eye tracking), brand memory
Stijn Nuijten
familiarity with slogan
All materials were pretested to differ on fluency and humor, but to be similar on informativeness

7. Addertje: …en al het vuil verdwijnt al naar drie behandelingen
Iris: 8 verschillende lettertypes gebruikt,
130 participants,

8. Within person

9. Humor and Fluency
Mirte: if there is not much memory for the brand, can the campaign even be successful?
Within design. People viewed 5 different adds, with random conditions
150 participants

10. Hidde: same number of words. Simple background, within participants

11. nbld
in ad waren gekke dingen opgenomen zoals een smaaktest bij 6 kinderen, with sweeteners en maar weinig fruit, telefoon abonnement dat na de eerste twee maanden 3 keer zo duur wordt.

12. Results – Attitude towards the ad
Iris: Effect of humor (4.1 vs. 3.6, F(1, 126) = 14.52, p < .001) Effect of fluency (4.0 vs. 3.7, F(1, 126) = 5.72, p = .018) No interaction (F(1, 126) = 3.01, p = .085) Mirte: No effect of humor (4.2 vs. 4.1, F(1, 149) = 1.17, p = .281) No effect of fluency (4.1 vs. 4.2, F(1, 149) = 2.24, p = .136) No interaction (F(1, 149) = 2.80, p = .097) Stijn: Effect of humor (3.1 vs. 3.7, F(1, 142) = 14.88, p < .001) Effect of fluency (3.3 vs. 3.6, F(1, 142) = 4.33, p = .039) Interaction (F(1, 142) = 4.98, p = .027)

13. Mirte
Iris
Stijn
Note that only for Stijn, the interaction was significant. There the pattern is that when there is no humor, fluency does not have an influence, but if there is humor, fluency leads to even more positive effects.
This pattern cannot be seen in the other two studies.

14. Results – memory
Mirte: No effect of humor (0.83 vs. 0.81, F(1, 149) = 0.11, p = .74) Effect of fluency (0.90 vs. 0.73, F(1, 149 ) = 9.17, p = .003) No interaction (F(1, 149) = 0.63, p = .428) Tim: No effect of humor (0.37 vs. 0.37, F(1, 59) = 0.004, p = .948) No effect of fluency (0.39 vs. 0.35, F(1, 59 ) = 0.31, p = .579) No interaction (F(1, 59) = 1.17, p = .284) Hidde: No effect of humor (1.57 vs. 1.60, F(1, 28) = 0.05, p = .825) No effect of fluency (1.67 vs. 1.5, F(1, 25) = 1.30, p = .265) No interaction (F(1, 28) = 0.15, p = .705)

15. Results – resistance
Iris: Effect of humor (2.2 vs. 1.1, F(1, 126) = 9.37, p = .003) No effect of fluency (1.8 vs. 1.4, F(1, 126) = 1.29, p = .258) No interaction (F(1, 126) = 0.49, p = .485 Stijn: No effect of humor (1.5 vs. 1.3, F(1, 142) = 0.53, p = .470) Effect of fluency (1.7 vs. 1.1, F(1, 142) = 7.66, p = .006) No interaction (F(1, 142) = 0.76, p = .385
Coded open recall
Bij Stijn duidelijk effect van fluency, waarschijnlijk omdat het bij hem om onbekende advertenties ging, waardoor mensen eerder op zoek gaan naar informatie erover.

16. Results – special effects
Implicit attitudes: no effects Attention: no effects Intention to follow advice: no effects

17. Results – overview of effect sizes

18. Humor indeed leads to more positive attitudes towards the ad
Results – overview
Humor indeed leads to more positive attitudes towards the ad
We find no indication for the ‘vampire effect’
We do not find strong evidence for a lack of criticism due to humor
Non-fluency leads to deeper processing???
Given that all the effects of fluency point in the direction that non-fluency leads to more detection of hidden flaws and better memory, it may be that non-fluency brings you into a state of processing need.
Definitely more research is needed, and it may also be time for a meta analysis, including the studies in the file drawer, to see whether the vampire effect really exists.