Effect of Humor and Sexualization in

Advertisements and Recall of Brand

Name

Introduction
Advertising: Advertising is a form of communication
for marketing and used to encourage, persuade, or
manipulate an audience.
Sexualization in advertisements:
Defining Sexual Appeal :
There are two types of sexual appeal:
According to Severn, Belch and Belch (1990), The first
one is the use of sexual stimuli in either visual or
verbal form, or the integration of the both, with the
focus on nudity, male/female contact and suggestions
of sexual intercourse.
The second type is the use of decorative models, which
is defined by Reid and Soley (1983) as to adorn the

 Humor in Advertising:
Operationally, humor is defined, according to Sternthal and
Craig (1973), as heightened arousal, smiles, and
laughter exhibited by an audience in response to a
particular message.
The reason why humor has been widely used in
advertising is that humor can enhance ones favorable
attitude towards an advertisement.
Recall in memory:
It refers to the retrieval of events or information from the
past.
Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three
core processes of memory.

Literature Review- Study 1

Title:- The Advertising Effectiveness of Projecting Humorous Elements
into Sexual Advertising Appeals
Author:- Cheng, Benjamin Ka Lun Duo, Christine Zhi Qun
Objectives: H1 There is a positive correlation between ones perceived humor with
the likability to an advertisement
H2 Advertisement combining sexual appeal and humorous elements is
more likable than that without humorous element.
H3 Female group is less likable to the advertisement with sexual
appeals with regardless of the introduction of humorous elements than
male
group.

 Sample and Design:

An experiment was carried out using 64 undergraduates
students from the Hong Kong Baptist University. The
subjects were randomly assigned to two experimental
groups with gender controlled. Each group was
composed of 16 male and 16 female, exposing to two
different stimuli and a questionnaire was given to
each of the subjects as an instrument of measurement.

It is a simple two-group comparison experimental design.

Group one exposed to the stimulus of combining sexual
appeals with humorous element while group two
exposed to the stimulus of sexual appeal alone.

 Results:
The first hypothesis predicted that there is a positive
correlation between perceived humor and likability to
an advertisement. To test this hypothesis, a
correlation was run. correlation was run. The
correlation is shown as significant (p<.01). This result
is considered statistically significant and it supports
the first hypothesis.
The second hypothesis predicted that advertisement
combining sexual appeal and humorous elements is
more likable than that without humorous element.
Independent sample t-test was run to see if there is
significant difference between the two groups in terms
of their likability to the advertisement. Result show
that there is no significant difference on likabililty
between two
experimental groups (p=.097). Hence, the second
hypothesis is not supported.

 The third hypothesis predicted that female group is

less likable to the advertisement with sexual appeals
regardless of the introduction of humorous elements
than male group. Independent sample t-test was
run to compare the means of likability to the
advertisement between the female group and the
male group. Result showed that there is significant
difference on likability (p=.029) between the two
genders who were exposed to the stimuli of sexual
advertisement either humorous elements is
introduced or not the male group. Therefore, the third
hypothesis is supported.

Literature Review- Study 2

Title:-

Feelings Evoked by Warm, Erotic, Humorous or NonEmotional Print Advertisements for Alcoholic Beverages .

Author:- M. Geuens Universiteit Antwerpen and P. De

Pelsmacker
Objectives:-

To determine whether four types of emotional executions

(warmth, humor, eroticism, non-emotional) result in major
differences in ad-evoked feelings
To determine to what extent these evoked feelings
contribute to advertising results (ad and brand recognition,
cognitive reactions, Aad, Ab, PI) of the four types of
emotional executions.

 Sample:
The study was carried out using a group of
undergraduate (90) and graduate (25) students at a
Belgian university, all between 18 and 25 years old, 53
of them were women.
Results:
1- Emotional Content and Ad-Evoked Feelings

The first research question refers to differences in

affective reactions to stimuli with different
emotional content.

Methodology
Aim: To assess the effect of humor and sexualization in
advertisements on memory recall of brand names.
The research objectives of this study:
1- to examine whether humor or sexualization in advertisements
have greater recall of brand names in memory.
2- to examine whether there is any significant gender difference
in memory recall of brand names as an effect of humor and
sexualization in advertisements.
Hypothesis:
Alternate hypothesis:
1- There is a significant effect of humor on memory recall than
sexualization in advertisements.
2- There are gender differences in memory recall of brand names
as an effect of humor and sexualization in advertisements.

 Variables:
Independent Variable:
1- The effect of humor in advertisements on memory
recall of brand names
2- The effect of sexualization in advertisements on
memory recall of brand names
Dependent Variable:
The Recall of brand names of advertisements
Operational Definition of Variables:
Independent Variable:
1- Humor demonstrated through 20 print advertisements
of various brands
2- Sexualization in the form of partial nudity or
cheesecake, demonstrated through 20 print
advertisements of various brands

 Design: A comparative research design

Control:
1. The humor and advertisements must be new
2. All the pictures shown, must be roughly equated in
sexuality, on the basis of the nudity
3. Brands must be as uncommon as possible, in order to
not create past associations
4. Noise and other distractions must be kept at a bare
minimum.

 Sampling details:
Sampling Technique: Purposive and convenient
sampling
Sample Size: 30
Age limitEriksons psychosocial stage of young adulthood:
18- 35 years
of age.

Implications of this study:

1) When a new product is launched, appropriate
methods of advertising can be employed in order to
increase purchase intent.
2) The advertisement can be appropriately designed for
the targeted audience or population, in order to
create a positive attitude towards the brand and also
increase purchase intent of consumers.
3)

Depending on the results, the kind of sexualization

can be adopted by the ad agencies.