Date of Defense

4-24-2025

Date of Graduation

4-2025

Department

Marketing

First Advisor

Alhassan Mumuni

Second Advisor

Eric Harvey

Abstract

This study examines the effectiveness of humorous versus serious advertising tones across three different product categories, which are beverage, hygiene, and health/medicine. This is done by measuring their impact on a consumer’s brand/product recall, enjoyment, and purchase intent. Historically, humor has been related to positive emotional responses while seriousness has been associated with building trust and credibility. By using a within-subjects experimental-survey design, data were collected from seventy survey respondents who viewed humorous and serious advertisements across the three product categories (hygiene, beverage, and health/medicine and then evaluated each ad based on their agreement to statements relating to brand/product recall, enjoyment, and purchase intent on a five-point Likert scale. Demographics data was also collected and can be interpreted as a wide variety of age, race/ethnicity, gender, and income among all survey respondents.

The results from the study revealed that advertisement tone significantly affects enjoyment and brand/product recall, with the effects being moderated by product category. Humorous advertisements were overall more enjoyable according to survey results, especially in the health/medicine product category. A serious advertisement tone led to increased brand/product recall in the beverage and health/medicine product categories while a humorous advertisement tone led to increased brand/product recall in the hygiene product category. Serious advertisements outperformed humorous advertisements in all three product categories in regard to purchase intent, which indicates that a serious advertisement tone influences purchase intent regardless of product type.

This study ultimately suggests that marketers should strategically choose their advertisement tone based on the specific objectives they want to accomplish (building awareness, creating positive brand perception, driving sales) and product category they are trying to achieve these objectives to maximize the effectiveness of their campaign. A humorous advertisement tone may enhance awareness and brand perception, but a serious advertisement tone is seemingly more effective for driving sales.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Open Access

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