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The Advertising Effectiveness of Different Advertising

Strategies: Humor, Appeal to Fear, and Source Credibility

Zishuo Zhang

University of California, Santa Barbara

11/20/2022
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The development of advertising has gone through a long process of development. From the initial

stage of simply promoting information to attracting the interest of potential customers, creating

brand effects, and increasing sales, the development of advertising has been accompanied by

sociology, psychology, and communication. Advertisers can flexibly apply promotional techniques

to attract interest and make their products stand out. In all operative strategies, humor, appeal to

fear, and source credibility are three thought-provoking parts that are effective of all

advertisements in advertising. The right mix of advertising techniques and product features can

produce great results. Humor, exploitation of emotion, and source credibility can work differently

for different product categories and audiences.

Humor is an appeal to human emotion, which effective on evoking people’s positive feelings,

cognitive response, and form psychological connection between pleasure and product in the

advertisement. In “The advertising effectiveness of different levels of intensity of humour and

warmth and the moderating role of top of mind awareness and degree of product use, (1999 Taylor

& Francis Ltd)” by Pelsmacker, Patrick De, the authors cited an experiment that first classified

138 ads into nine categories based on humor and warmth in the first stage. A new group of

students was then asked to organize the ads according to their type, and each group rated them in

stage 2. The researchers tested the effectiveness of humor in helping viewers form conscious

connections, its enhancement of advertising effectiveness, and its significance in mobilizing

viewers' emotions. The conclusion driven from the research shows that the right amount of humor
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leads to the most favorable brand-related perceptions. Although familiarity theory suggests that

consumers familiar with a brand are more likely to evaluate the advertisement more positively,

this does not appear to be the case for emotional advertising. Modern people have a standard

criterion for obtaining advertising information of interest, which is light and pleasant. Humor in

advertising can attract the audience's interest through its unique light-heartedness and

pleasantness. At the same time, this light-hearted presentation can also enhance the product's

credibility and create a good image of the product, thus achieving the purpose of promotion.

Humor is a kind of art with irony and fun. This art reduces people's suspicion and rejection of this

product by bringing pleasure to them. On the other hand, a good sense of humor can create a

strong impression, and people are more likely to remember this product and have a relatively

positive image of it.

In “The Funny Side of Sex: How Acceptable Are Sex Appeal Adverts in Different Cultures

and What Role Does Humour Play?” by Silke Maria Engelbart and Delia Anne Jackson, the

degree of sexual innuendo and nudity used in advertising to promote products varies significantly

from country to country and culture. Different culture and ethnic norms have essential impact on

people’s acceptability of sexual and nudity advertisement. However, humor works cross-culturally

with sexual advertisements and makes them more acceptable. The researchers used statistical

tables to compare the acceptance of advertising in various aspects in different countries. The

experiment results show that the acceptance of an advertisement is highly dependent on the

cultural background. Some countries with earlier exposure to advertising, such as France, can

accept sexually suggestive advertisements with some humorous atmosphere. For more masculine

and traditional places such as China, less masculine ads are unacceptable to some Chinese men.
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The experiment results prove that sexual and nudity features in advertisements need to be adjusted

according to different cultural backgrounds. Humor can be used cross-culturally in most cases, but

it also has to be used in the context of the local situation.

Emotion appeal advertising is based on a persuasive message that provoke audiences’

feelings. For example, fear appealing emphasizes the potential dangers and harm that will befall

individuals (in this case, the audience) if they do not adopt the messages’ recommendations. There

are actually very few circumstances where Fear Appeal advertisement are not effective and

according to a study done at the University of Illinois, there are no identifiable circumstances

where fear-based advertisements backfire and lead to undesirable outcomes. Don Draper writes in

“Mad Men”, "Marketing is built on joy. But do you know what pleasure is? Pleasure is like when

you smell your new car. Pleasure is away from fear." The World Health Organization did a poster

featuring a fish in human form with the text "Stop climate change before it changes you." Such

ads exploit the Valley of Terror effect, emphasizing the dangers of climate change for humans.

Naturally, viewers will pay more attention to environmental protection to prevent this from

happening. The use of horror elements in an ad can amplify people's fear of a thing, thus achieving

the purpose of the ad. Similarly, advertising can strengthen people's feelings by promoting

happiness, sadness, and public anger. Humans are an emotional species. When consumers decide

to buy a product, what influences them most is not the product information but their feelings about

the brand. This sound or awful feeling heavily depends on how consumers feel after watching a

product advertisement. The success of an advertisement does not lie in the richness of its content

but in whether it can mobilize consumers' emotions and make them resonate.
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According to “The effect of advertising credibility: could it change consumers’ attitude and

purchase intentions?” by R.M. Verstraten, “Advertising credibility refers to the extent to which

consumers perceive messages of advertising believable and to the extent to which consumers trust

the source of advertisement (MacKenzie & Lutz, 1989).”

Many brands face this problem when recommending their products: how do they let

customers know the advantages of their products? How to make customers trust the product works

well? In reality, we often face a situation where sellers directly say to customers, "this cup is

perfect." The customer will be skeptical. But when sellers translate that into a way that says, "Did

you know? All the Hilton hotels in San Francisco and Los Angeles use this cup!" That's when the

customer will start to believe that the mug works well. The first sentence is suspicious, and the

second is believable because when people buy most things, they don't have time to research

deeply. Just purchasing a mug, few people will study the production chain of the mug. The

professionalism of the authority or institution comes out when people can't find the criteria to

judge. The recommendations of these institutions must have been analyzed by big data and

scientifically explained, so for customers to trust them is certainly not wrong.

Also, the creditworthiness of the advertising platform is a fundamental criterion for judging.

Many people are willing to trust the ads on the websites of reputable channels or authorities. These

authoritative platforms ensure the authenticity and credibility of the advertising content when

screening it. Through this third-party participation, customers can save a lot of time for their

investigation and evaluation, which increases the acceptance of the product and achieves the

promotional effect.
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In conclusion, the use of techniques in advertising can help people become more receptive to

the product or idea being presented. The humor in advertising creates a pleasant mood and a

strong impression of the product. Appealing to the viewer's emotions is also an effective way to

make people think more about how much they like the product when they subjectively choose it.

Suitable ads that appeal to human emotions are more acceptable. The credibility of an

advertisement is also an essential criterion for judging. Certification by an authority can make the

ad more convincing and save the time and effort of the customer to investigate the product. Such

certification can make people believe in the content of the advertisement.

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Work Cited Page

Cameron, Glen T. “Does Publicity Outperform Advertising? an Experimental Test of the Third-
Party Endorsement.” Journal of Public Relations Research, vol. 6, no. 3, 1994, pp. 185–
207., https://doi.org/10.1207/s1532754xjprr0603_03.

Ventis, W. Larry, et al. “Using Humor in Systematic Desensitization to Reduce Fear.” The Journal
of General Psychology, vol. 128, no. 2, 2001, pp. 241–253.,
https://doi.org/10.1080/00221300109598911.

Verstraten, R.M. “The Effect of Advertising Credibility: Could It Change Consumers’ Attitude and
Purchase Intentions?” Erasmus University Thesis Repository, Aug. 2015,
https://thesis.eur.nl/pub/31376/.