Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Sexy and Humorous Content in Advertisements

Sexy and humorous content increase attention and memory for television advertising. This paper suggests that different biological mechanisms underlie their similar effects. Results show that sexy content elicits immediate appetitive activation and increased resource allocation. Humorous content elic...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Communication monographs 2015-01, Vol.82 (1), p.134-162
Main Authors: Sparks, Johnny V., Lang, Annie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Advertising
Effects
Humor
Limited capacity
Memory
Motivation
Processing
Resource Allocation
Sex
Television
Television advertising
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Sexy and humorous content increase attention and memory for television advertising. This paper suggests that different biological mechanisms underlie their similar effects. Results show that sexy content elicits immediate appetitive activation and increased resource allocation. Humorous content elicits an incongruity/mismatch orienting response followed by an increase in appetitive activation, resulting in increased resource allocation and memory for the humorous ads. More resources are allocated to ads with an overall unpleasant compared to pleasant tone and the addition of sexy and humorous content to unpleasant compared to pleasant ads results in better memory.
ISSN:0363-7751
1479-5787
DOI:10.1080/03637751.2014.976236