Humorous Threat Persuasion in Advertising: The Effects of Humor, Threat Intensity, and Issue Involvement

Abstract

Using humor to communicate threatening information in advertising can often be observed in practice, but scholars have seldom investigated its effects. Drawing from dual processing models, the current study proposed that response to humor in threat persuasion would depend on the individual's level of issue involvement. This proposition was tested in two experiments. In Study 1, a significant humor and issue involvement interaction effect emerged for threat persuasion ads; low-involvement individuals rated the humor ad more positively than the nonhumor ad, and the opposite was true for high-involvement individuals. With threat intensities varied in Study 2, the results indicated that the effectiveness of various threat intensity and humor combinations depended on the individual's issue involvement. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was funded by the Doctoral Dissertation Competition Award from the American Academy of Advertising. The authors thank Carrie La Ferle for helpful feedback on an earlier draft of the article. We also thank the Editor, Wei-Na Lee, the Associate Editor, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and thorough evaluations.

Hye Jin Yoon (PhD, University of Georgia) is assistant professor of advertising, Temerlin Advertising Institute, Meadows School of the Arts, Southern Methodist University.Spencer F. Tinkham (PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana– Champaign) is professor of advertising, Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Georgia.