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Because most consumers are exposed to a large number of advertisements on a daily basis, humorous advertisements may be the most frequent way that many come into contact with intentional humor. Traditional advertisements are typically defined as persuasive, nonpersonal communications delivered to consumers via the mass media on behalf of identifiable sponsors. Advertisers use humor as a message tactic, with the intent of enhancing an advertisement's potential for achieving various strategic objectives. Humor was used rather infrequently during the early years of modern advertising; researchers, however, have confirmed that its use in contemporary advertising is prevalent, especially in the broadcast media. Although this is generally true for most industrialized, First World countries, humor is found somewhat more frequently in the advertising of Western countries and cultures than in Eastern ones.

This entry first reviews the history of humor in advertising and explains how and why many advertisers became increasingly confident during the 20th century that it would enhance the effectiveness of their messages. Next, the entry describes the most important theoretical explanations for how humor is believed to help advertisers achieve important advertising objectives, which include the consumer's comprehension and recall of the message, as well as persuasion that leads the consumer to form an intention to buy the product or service. The entry discusses the cognitive response theory of advertising as a framework for understanding the contribution of humor to comprehension and recall. Both the affect-transfer hypothesis and cognitive response [Page 5]theory are also presented as possible frameworks for understanding the role of humor in persuasion.

Lastly, the entry describes several typologies of humorous advertisements, including one widely researched typology that shows they can be validly and reliably described and explained using one or more of the cognitive and semantic one- and two-stage incongruity theories, the social theory of disparagement, or the affective and physiological release and arousal-safety theories. The two-stage, incongruity-resolution theory explains how the presentation of two normally incompatible or incongruous message elements, which also share a common meaning, generates humor when a punch line or trigger enables people to recognize the shared meaning and resolve the incongruity. Incongruity and its resolution are at the heart of most humor that passes as “wit” (for example, jokes, puns, and parodies). Humor generated by the ridicule of another person, group, institution, or even idea—which is explained by disparagement theory—is also frequently found in advertisements that take the form of satire. The arousal-safety version of the release or relief theories proposes that people find something funny when they experience a physiological state of arousal regarding the safety of themselves or someone else. If people can make a safety judgment that enables them to conclude that the object of the anxiety is either safe or that the negative consequences are insignificant, the resulting physiological release is experienced as humor (often in the form of nervous laughter).