{"id":643575,"date":"2013-02-22T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T13:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/serkadis.com\/index\/?guid=771b31ba37d19a9e77e9ef30c2cd3d2a"},"modified":"2013-02-21T17:14:24","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T22:14:24","slug":"be-funny-but-not-too-funny-in-your-ad-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/643575","title":{"rendered":"Be Funny (But Not Too Funny) In Your Ad Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In March 2009, Kia Motors America aired a fun little ad for its Soul model car. To evoke the drab mindlessness of the typical daily commute, it showed roads filled with hamster wheels. When a Soul drove up alongside one and its window slid down, the hamsters in the car, chilling to their hip tunes, showed everyone &#8220;a new way to roll.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HQ-CDE_r_wg\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Kia has stuck with the hamsters since, and in every outing they&#8217;re funny but not uproariously so. New research suggests that might be key to their product-selling success. (The campaign is credited with spurring multiple years of double-digit growth in Kia&#8217;s U.S. sales.) According to the marketing scholars Thales Teixeira, Rosalind Picard, and Rana el Kaliouby, <a href=\"http:\/\/hbswk.hbs.edu\/item\/7187.html?wknews=01302013\">who used web-based facial tracking<\/a> to gauge consumer responses to various humorous ads, &#8220;excessive amounts of entertainment&#8221; tend to backfire and actually reduce an ad&#8217;s persuasiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Timing counts, too. &#8220;Entertainment evoked before the consumer is aware of the brand being advertised &#8230; reduces purchase intent,&#8221; the authors report. &#8220;But entertainment evoked after the consumer sees the brand &#8230; increases purchase intent. In this case, entertainment has a cooperating effect with persuasion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Humor has always been part of the advertiser&#8217;s tool kit, but its use has always been controversial. &#8220;You can entertain a million people and not sell one of them,&#8221; observed the ad guru <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Advertising-Methods-Prentice-Business-Classics\/dp\/0130957011\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1361476524&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=John+Caples+advertising\">John Caples<\/a>. Advising copywriters to avoid it, he pointed out, &#8220;There is not a single humorous line in two of the most influential books in the world, namely, the Bible and the Sears, Roebuck catalog.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Still, it&#8217;s hard to imagine following that advice in an era when consumers are inundated with communications and gravitate instantly to those they find <a href=\"http:\/\/www.veryfunnyads.com\/\">most fun<\/a>. As research techniques become ever more sophisticated, we&#8217;re bound to see humor used more than ever &#8212; but also with more precision.<\/p>\n<p><em>This is the second in a series of posts from our <a href=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/archive-toc\/BR1303\">March issue on the future of advertising<\/a>. Stay tuned for more &#8220;Creative That Cracks the Code&#8221; over the coming weeks; topics include <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/when_advertising_meets_the_mem.html\">Variations on a Meme<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/a_unique_approach_to_marketing_coca_cola_in_hong_kong.html\">The Ad as a Game<\/a>; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/how_crowdsourcind_a_daily_twist.html\">Collaborating With the Crowd<\/a>; A New Social Movement; Ads That &#8220;Go Native&#8221;; Apps as the New Ads; Personalized Products; and Ads in the Public Sphere.<\/p>\n<p>We also want to know which ad campaigns strike you as innovative; tell us below and we could analyze your pick as part of this series.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"insight-center\">\n<div class=\"insight-center-head\" style=\"font-size:18px; line-height:1.1em;\">The Future of Advertising<br \/><span style=\"font-size:14px;\">An HBR Insight Center<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"insight-center-img\">\n        <A HREF=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/special-collections\/insight\/the-future-of-advertising\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/hbr.org\/hbrg-main\/resources\/images\/special-collections\/insight\/the-future-of-advertising\/357x215-0213-insightcenter-mainpage.jpg\"><\/A>\n    <\/div>\n<div class=\"insight-center-list\">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2013\/02\/advertisers_must_be_inventors.html\">Advertisers Must Be Inventors<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2013\/02\/february_shows_advertisers.html\">February Shows Advertisers Still Love Broadcast Channels<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/cs\/2013\/02\/advertisers_need_to_act_more_like_newsrooms.html\">Advertisers Should Act More Like Newsrooms<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/hbr\/hbreditors\/2013\/02\/how_crowdsourcind_a_daily_twist.html\">How Crowdsourcing a &#8220;Daily Twist&#8221; Paid Off for Nabisco<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.harvardbusiness.org\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?a=_7XIxnZML3M:ajWCopnZVho:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.harvardbusiness.org\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?a=_7XIxnZML3M:ajWCopnZVho:bcOpcFrp8Mo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/harvardbusiness?d=bcOpcFrp8Mo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/harvardbusiness\/~4\/_7XIxnZML3M\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In March 2009, Kia Motors America aired a fun little ad for its Soul model car. To evoke the drab mindlessness of the typical daily commute, it showed roads filled with hamster wheels. When a Soul drove up alongside one and its window slid down, the hamsters in the car, chilling to their hip tunes, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7582,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-643575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7582"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}