Attitudes formation towards advertising – using humor effect.

Have you ever seen a humorous advertising that makes you change the attitude about the product appeared in the ads and want to purchase it immediately? For me, hilarious contents are usually the main reasons why I notice and make purchase to the product promoted in the ads.

(Photo source: http://www.thoughtrot.com/very-hilarious-advertisements/)

The definition of attitude towards the ads is the predisposition to react in a “favorable or unfavorable manner” to an specific ad (Shimp, 1981, p. 9-15). The formation of attitudes towards an ad, through these manners, are learned as well as developed and they are affected by previous personal experience and information collected from both personal and impersonal resources (Schiffman et al., 2013, p.273).

So what is humour effect in advertising and how can advertisers create humour in an ad? According to Schiffman, humour is the characteristic that makes a circumstance or a media communication become more entertaining or funny (Schiffman et al., 2013, p.258). An advertising is considered humourous if it can make the audience smile, laugh or feel happy. (Chang and Chang, 2014). Humour in advertising is the result of using expression methods, such as pun, understatement, joke, ludicrousness, satire and/or irony (Biswas, Olsen & Carlet, 1992).

Utilizing humour effects on advertising is shown to give a positive effect on consumers (Calvin et al., 1984). A research shows that approximately three fouths of participants replied that they would have an intention to change their buying decision after watching the advertisements containing fascinatingly humourous content (Motwani and Agarwal, 2013). Others researches show that humour factors can enhance a person’s favourable attitude towards advertisements (Calvin et al., 1984). Through these studies, advertisers should consider using humour contents when creating an advertisement.

The reason why humour effects have a great impact on advertising can be easily answered through the analysis of tricomponent attitude model including cognitive, affective and conative components (Schiffman et al., 2013). Cognitive components of attitude are the attitudes based on beliefs, knowledges, thoughts, ideas about something, whereas affective components are the feelings, emotions about something and the conative components are the behavioural components towards something (Schiffman et al., 2013). Advertisers create humour contents in the ads to meet these customers’ components of attitudes, therefore, control and change the attitudes of consumers towards a product in a positive way (Chang and Chang, 2014).

(Photo source: Schiffman, 2013)

However, humour effects can create negative impact on consumers if it is used inappropriately (Motwani and Agarwal, 2013). The research indicates that nearly 60% of the respondents feel that the humour patterns in the advertising is effective if they have a limitation at some level, whereas approximately 30% of the partakers of the survey replies that they feel offensive when seeing humour content in the ads (Motwani and Agarwal, 2013). Therefore, an appropriate amount of humour contents should be used to avoid the ignorance of customers towards an ad.

(Photo source: http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Beer-Helping-Ugly-People-Have-Sex-Since-1862-Funny-Retro-Poster-Posters_i8837485_.htm)

The use of humour content in advertisements can be widely seen in the beer commercials. The Tuborg beer commercial below depicts the context that a man sitting next to a woman, and the more beer he drinks, the more beautiful the woman is. The commercial is hilarious and so right somehow and is suitable for men who want to escape reality by using the product. Tuborg beer commercial, therefore, successfully raises awareness of the customers about their products by promoting them in a funny way.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWKYGsm3Ue8)

Another hilarious beer commercial is Heineken advertisement. The context of the commercial is in a supermarket, a guy is buying grocery and a girl standing next to him is trying to reach two bottles of Heineken on the top of the shelf. The plot twist in this ad is that, everyone will think that the guy will take the Heineken beers for the girls to please her, but eventually he decides to take them for himself and ignore the girls. The commercial does not only delivery hilarious content but also implicitly shows that a bottle of Heineken is more attractive than anything else.

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbfGLbTKyw)

To sum up, humour contents used in advertising does have a great impact on attitude change & formation of consumers.

Reference:
Biswas, A., Olsen, J. E. & Carlet, V. (1992). “A comparison of print advertisements from the United States and France”, Journal of Advertising, [online] 21 (4)，p.73-81. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4188859?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [Accessed 5 May 2017].

Chang, W. & Chang, I. (2014). “The Influences of Humorous Advertising on Brand Popularity and Advertising Effects in the Tourism Industry”, Sustainability, [online] 6 (12), pp.9205-9217. Available at: http://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/6/12/9205 [Accessed 5 May 2017].

Duncan, C, Nelson, J & Frontczak, N. (1984). “The Effect of Humor on Advertising Comprehension” NA Advances in Consumer Research, [online] 11 (0), p432-437. Available at: http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=6290 [Accessed 5 May 2017].

Motwani, D & Agarwal, K. (2013). “Impact of humorous advertisements on customers’ behavior”, International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, [online] 2 (10), p34-41, ISSN: 2278-6236. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/5450691/IMPACT_OF_HUMOROUS_ADVERTISEMENTS_ON_CUSTOMERS_BEHAVIOR [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Schiffman, L., O’Cass, A., Paladino, A. and Carlson, J. (2013). Consumer behaviour. 6th ed. Pearson Education Australia.

Shimp, T. A. (1981). “Attitude toward the Ad as a Mediator of Consumer Brand Choice”, Journal of Advertising, [online] 10 (2), p.9-15, ISSN 0022-2437. Available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00913367.1981.10672756?journalCode=ujoa20 [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Can opinion leaders influence consumer behavior?

Have you ever change your mind or attitude towards an issue, a product or an event after being affected by the opinion of celebrities, famous people, vloggers, Youtubers, etc? If you were, your attitudes and thoughts were guided by opinion leaders.

(Photo sources: http://anneshiahardy.strikingly.com/blog/opinion-leaders-the-diffusers-of-innovation)

Even though the definition of opinion leaders is slightly differed throughout the time, the concept of opinion leaders still contains the main points. Traditionally, the concept of opinion leader derived from a group of people accepting the information positively from media and will pass the information to others based on their previous positive attitude towards the information (Meng, 2011). However, nowadays, opinion leaders are usually people who have a well-known knowledge about a particular subject and a great influence in both online and offline world such as famous vloggers, celebrities, well-known youtubers, fashionista, etc. They are people with great impacts on audience and their opinions towards an issue, an event or a product are highly-reached and respected.

Opinion leaders are considered to be the most effective way to raise the awareness of consumer and influence their decision making process (Boundless, 2017). According to a research, it is shown that an average mean of 75% of respondents in a survey make a decision based on the opinion of others, whereas the proportion of respondents making a purchasing decision as a result of peer pressure and guardian’s opinion, accounts for only 40% and 20% respectively. (Kwon, 2015).

(Photo source: http://www.freshminds.net/2010/04/assessing-the-impact-of-word-of-mouth-marketing-a-mckinsey-report/)

Some people may wonder where the origin of opinion leaders was. It is believed that the foundation of opinion leaders came from the word-of-mouth communication because a long time ago marketers have recognized that interpersonal communication is a crucial medium for exchanging the idea in the society (Chaudhry, S 2013). Katz and Lazarsfeld claimed that interpersonal communication are often involved in high frequency and have a better impact on any of the mass media in brand switching of low-involvement product in the classic Decatour study (Chaudhry, S 2013).

So why do so many people follow the opinion leaders when making decision? The idea is that, when approaching a new product, people usually seek for reviews or recommendations to gain more knowledge about the product (Kwon, 2015). Then, opinion leaders, having a high credibility, offer a full knowledge about the product as well as endorse the product with their credibility, reinforcing the confidence of consumers in the decision making process(The Balance, 2017).

Whenever a company want to wide-spread their ideas, information about the products to public audience, it is essential for them to firstly approach key opinion leaders (Ghinn, 2017). The reason for this is that the opinion leaders receive product information from the media exposure and spread it to audience through the way they interpret the information (Kwon, 2015).

One of the successful examples in applying successfully opinion leaders concept to real life is Kanye West with his positive view towards his Adidas Yeezy Boost sneakers.

(Yeezy Boost 350)
(Photo source: https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/yeezy-boost-marketing-strategy/)

Kanye West is not only a talented rapper but also a fashionista who has a huge impact on fashion. Moreover, he has nearly 19 millions followers on Twitter, which means that a huge number of fans follows him and his taste of fashion or current trend, leading to the fact that everthing he tweets can be wide-spread to the world without difficulty. (Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog, 2017). In the Yeezy Boost campaign, to promote the sneaker, Kanye West even wears it on his concerts, award shows and so on (Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog, 2017).

(Kanye West in one of his concerts)
(Photo source: https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/yeezy-boost-marketing-strategy/)

Furthermore, he even have a talk on a TV show named Breakfast Club to discuss and reveal the relevant information about Yeezy Boost before its release. (Allarey, 2017). Kanye West also give sneakers as gifts to many a star list of group like Justin Bieber, Calvin Harris, etc to get the endorsement of them, as well as make these celebrities to be key opinion leaders for Adidas Yeezy Boost like him (Allen and Allen, 2017).

(Justin Bieber wears Yeezy Boost pirate black)
(Photo source: Internet)

(Calvin Harris wears Yeezy Boost 350 Turtle Dove)
(Photo source: Internet)

All in all, opinion leaders do play a key role in influencing consumer behavior.

Reference:
Allarey, R. (2017). Kanye Dropped Some Knowledge on The Breakfast Club Saying New Yeezys Are Dropping Soon. [online] Complex AU. Available at: http://au.complex.com/sneakers/2015/02/kanye-west-breakfast-club-interview-yeezy-boost [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Allen, R. and Allen, R. (2017). Celebrities Wearing Yeezy Boost Sneakers. [online] Footwear News. Available at: http://footwearnews.com/gallery/celebrity-shoes-yeezy-boost-sneakers-photos/#!6/kanye-west-20/ [Accessed 5 May 2017].

Boundless. (2017). Opinion Leaders. [online] Available at: https://www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/consumer-marketing-4/social-influences-on-the-consumer-decision-process-42/opinion-leaders-214-4122/ [Accessed 5 May 2017].

Chaudhry, S & Irshad, W. (2013). “Opinion Leadership and Its Role in Buyer Decision Making”, Academy of Contemporary Research Journal, [online] 2 (1), p16-23. Available at: http://aocrj.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/AOCRJ-V2I1P3-OPINION-LEADERSHIP-AND-ITS-ROLE-IN-BUYER-DECISION-MAKING.pdf [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Ghinn, D. (2017). Engaging Key Opinion Leaders: A Strategic Approach. [online] CREATION. Available at: http://creation.co/knowledge/engaging-key-opinion-leaders-a-strategic-approach/ [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Kwon, Y. & Song, H. (2015). “The Role of Opinion Leaders in Influencing Consumer Behaviors with a Focus on Market Mavens: A Meta-analysis”, Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, [online] 1 (1), p43-54. Available at: https://www.atiner.gr/journals/media/2015-1-1-3-Kwon.pdf [Accessed 6 May 2017]

Meng, F., Wei, J. & Zhu, Q. (2011). “Study on the impacts of opinion leader in online consuming decision”, Proceedings – 2011 International Joint Conference on Service Sciences, IJCSS 2011, pp. 140 – 144. Available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5960296/?reload=true [Accessed 6 May 2017]

The Balance. (2017). How to Understand and Identify Public Opinion Leaders. [online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/who-are-opinion-leaders-and-why-do-they-matter-2295976 [Accessed 6 May 2017].

Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog. (2017). How Kanye West’s Yeezy Boost 350s Sold Out In 12 Minutes And Became The Most Coveted Sneaker of the Moment – Word-of-Mouth and Referral Marketing Blog. [online] Available at: https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/yeezy-boost-marketing-strategy/ [Accessed 5 May 2017].

A great shopping experience with Ebay

There are so many online stores that provides unforgettable experiences to customers. Out of these, Ebay is the store that I have great experiences shopping with.

A few weeks ago, I looked for an Instax mini as a birthday gift  for my friend. After looking for it up and down in many retail stores, I could not manage to find one with a reasonable price. However, when I went online, Ebay offered a great deal which is three, four times cheaper than that of the regular store. As it was cheap, I thought the quality of the camera might not be guaranteed. However, when I received it, the Instax mini was as good as the one that I previously found in the retail store. My friend was also happy to see it and she said it was the best birthday gift ever.

So excited, I continued to buy a power bank due to the fact that I’m a tech geek. Nevertheless, the power bank did not perform so well. Therefore, I decided to return it to Ebay store. I thought the return process was complicated, but it turns out to be so easily. After sending complaint email to Ebay, I returned the failed item and received my refunds back to my bank account within the next three days. Furthermore, I also got a sorry letter from Ebay team and a $15 voucher as a compensation for the unfortunate incident.

Even though the poor product is not completely Ebay’s fault, the way they solved customer problem was so quick and professional, which makes me happy and fully satisfied. In the near future, I will definitely comeback and purchase items on Ebay again. Good job Ebay!