Humor sells

Yesterday results of a recent scientific study were being published on the effects of humor in advertising. The study showed that humor in ads does have a positive impact on customers. The study was being performed by Madelijn Strick from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, Holland.

If humor helps to bring across messages to your partner, colleagues or family, it is not very surprising that it smoothens communication with other target groups, like customers.

I was pretty surprised though by one other fact that had been proved by the researchers: viewers of a funny tv commercial or an ad next to a cartoon, for example, do not always remember the brand, but do make a positive association with the right product once they are in the store. This is called the ´humor paradox´by Strick. And even better, this positive association makes them move in the famous AIDA-customer behaviour model from the letter D (Desire) to the letter what we all target for: the A for Action. Bingo! Humor sells!

I do not exactly remember how many, but I wrote several articles in the (recent) past, stating how much I disliked advertising trying to be funny (of course there are lots of really funny ads), but do not succeed in making me remember what brand is being advertised. Now I know that that is not important at all, according to Strick, I think I have ask Google to delete these articles. After all, they might make some people laugh. Oh wait…that´s good!