Why Does Humor Work So Well in Advertising?

Ever wonder why so many Super Bowl ads feature dancing animals or sarcastic, SNL-like, one-liners? Are the advertisers just frustrated comedians? Hardly (but, also...yes).

They know something that’s been true since the days of Latin: the word “advertise” literally comes from advertere, meaning “to turn toward” and nothing turns heads quite like humor. Advertising legend Leo Burnett said it best: “If you don’t get noticed, you don’t have anything.” In other words, an ad that isn’t seen or heard might as well not exist. And few things cut through the noise better than a good joke.

Humor is a proven attention-grabber. Science backs this up. A massive meta-analysis of advertising studies reviewed decades of data and found that funny ads don’t just make us laugh, they make us pay more attention.

And that’s just the beginning. Humorous ads were shown to significantly boost a whole shopping cart of positive outcomes: people liked the ad more, liked the brand more, felt happier (and less annoyed), and even had higher purchase intentions after a good chuckle. A well-placed joke can actually charm you into enjoying an advertisement (imagine that!) and nudge you closer to buying. But…there’s a slight catch: that study found a small drop in perceived “credibility” for humorous ads, but honestly, if your serious ad puts people to sleep, credibility might not be your biggest problem.

Humor has a sneaky way of putting people in a good mood, and that’s golden for marketers. People in a positive mood are not only more receptive to messages, they’re literally willing to pay more. In one 2023 experiment, researchers showed consumers some promotional deals (think pizza-and-beer combo, or a bottle of fancy liqueur) while also gauging their moods. The results were striking: among folks who rated their mood as “good” or “very good,” 76% saw the offer as a great value, while only 60% of those in a bad mood felt the same. That’s a 16% jump in perceived value just from feeling upbeat. When people are feeling happy, they tend to focus on what they gain (mmm, pizza and beer!); when they’re grumpy, they’re more likely to dwell on what they’re spending (ugh, there goes $20). In another study, cheerful participants even remembered about 50% more ads in a newspaper than those who were unhappy. So if an ad can tickle your funny bone and brighten your mood, it’s doing more than entertaining; it’s priming you to notice and favor the message. The takeaway? Make ’em smile and they’re more likely to see the glass (and your product) as half-full...and feel a bit better about their wallet maybe being half-empty.

Telling advertisers that humor works might sound like stating the obvious. You’d think every marketer and their mother would be rushing to add a joke to their ad. Strangely, the opposite has happened. Many in the industry have lost their sense of humor, literally. According to Kantar’s analysis of 20 years’ worth of ads, the proportion of advertisements using humor dropped from over 50% around 2000 to roughly 34% by 2020. In 2022, fewer than one in three ads had any light-hearted tone at all, and fully “funny” ads were an endangered species (by some accounts under 10% of ads). Advertisers are playing it safe and solemn. Maybe they took that old-school advice “people do not patronize a clown” a bit too far. (A famous ad man from 1923 actually warned that humor was a no-no in business, insisting no one buys from jokesters. If he saw TikTok, he’d clutch his pearls.)

Since so many brands are avoiding humor (and ignoring the evidence that humor can boost ad effectiveness) a witty ad today not only gains all those benefits we mentioned, it also stands out like a rainbow in a sea of grey. In marketing, being distinctive is half the battle, and being funny is an easy way to instantly differentiate your brand from a dozen dry competitors. (As one advertising veteran quipped, the only reason people don’t buy from clowns is that clowns generally aren’t selling anything.)

And don’t think humor is only for Doritos or beer commercials, either. B2B can LOL too. Business buyers are humans with senses of humor (yes, even the folks in procurement enjoy a good laugh now and then). In fact, a global study by Oracle found that about 90% of consumers [and that includes business decision-makers] are more likely to recall an ad if it’s funny, and 72% would choose a brand that uses humor over a competitor. Humor humanizes your message. B2B brands that have embraced a bit of wit have seen stronger engagement, better loyalty, and, yes, upticks in sales. No one rushes to share that bland whitepaper your software company put out, but a clever, funny campaign about the same product? That gets people talking (and clicking). The lesson: no matter your industry, making your audience smile can be a secret weapon to be memorable and liked; two pretty important ingredients in the recipe for sales.

But, before you go hiring stand-up comedians to write your next ad (although, it’s not actually a bad idea. Forget I said anything…), there’s some fine print to using humor. You have to do it right, or it can backfire. This is called the Vampire Effect. No, this isn’t a Twilight sequel.  It's marketing lingo for when an ad’s entertaining elements suck the life (or rather, attention) away from the brand itself. In plain English: if your joke is hilarious but irrelevant to your product, people will remember the punchline and forget what you were selling. (We’ve all seen an ad that made us laugh and later thought, “Wait, what was that ad even for?” That’s the vampire effect sinking its fangs into your campaign.) The key is to make the product or message integral to the humor. As legendary ad man Bill Bernbach cautioned decades ago, “You are NOT right if in your ad you stand a man on his head just to get attention. You ARE right if you have him on his head to show how your product keeps things from falling out of his pockets.” In other words, go ahead and be funny…BUT MAKE IT RELEVANT. The joke should amplify your sales message, not distract from it. Research supports this: a recent study on the “vampire effect” found that the most effective humorous ads were the ones that wove the brand message into the gag itself, making them both funny and memorable for the product. The moment your humor overshadows your brand, you’ve basically paid good money to entertain people, instead of selling your widget or doohickey. So, by all means, put on a clown nose, just make sure it’s your brand’s clown nose.

A classic example of humor done right (as dissected in Richard Shotton and MichaeAaron Flicker’s excellent book “Hacking The Human Mind”) is Snickers’ “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign. In the famous Super Bowl spot from 2010, 88-year-old Betty White is out there in the mud playing backyard football with a bunch of young guys. She’s getting tackled left and right (with all the smack talk you’d expect). It’s absurd and it’s hilarious. Finally, she takes a bite of a Snickers bar and poof turns back into a young man, revealing it was a hunger-fueled illusion all along. The joke lands because it’s ridiculously incongruous (sweet old Betty White acting like a frat boy linebacker is comedy gold precisely because it’s so out of place), and yet the humor is 100% on-brand. The entire premise IS the product: when you’re hungry, you act like someone completely different (read: cranky, slow, not yourself), and Snickers will turn you back into the real you. It’s a perfect marriage of message and mirth.

In fact, marketing professors often point to this campaign as a textbook case of incongruity theory in action; that idea that we laugh when our expectations are flipped upside-down. There was even a 1970 experiment by psychologist Göran Nerhardt where people were handed an unexpectedly light weight after a series of heavy ones, and guess what? Many chuckled at the surprise deviation from expectation. The setup felt a bit like a prank, and the laughter that followed proved the point: we’re wired to giggle at the unexpected. Snickers capitalized on this quirk of human psychology. Seeing a beloved Golden Girl star get tackled in the mud jolts us out of our assumptions (grandma should be baking cookies, not running routes) and makes us laugh, all the while reinforcing Snickers’ selling proposition in a way we’ll never forget. The ad was so effective it spawned a whole series of similar spots and became part of the pop culture zeitgeist. More importantly, it sold a heck of a lot of candy bars.

So, why does humor work so well in advertising? Because at its core, humor is disarming. It draws our attention, lowers our defenses, and makes us feel good, which is a perfect state for a brand to whisper, “Hey, check this out.” A funny ad forges an emotional connection. It says, “We get you. We know what’ll make you smile.” And when consumers feel understood and happy, they’re more open to what comes next, maybe hearing why that product is worth their time. Humor can turn an interruption (an ad you didn’t ask to see) into a little gift of entertainment. You keep watching, maybe even share it with friends, and suddenly the ad isn’t an intruder anymore; it’s a welcome guest. Meanwhile, the brand’s message (if the message is aligned with the brand) piggybacks on that positive experience. It’s no coincidence that many of the most effective ads in history are funny: from old classics like “Where’s the Beef?” to viral hits on social media today. Laughter creates affinity. It’s hard to hate on a brand that just made you laugh, right?

Humor is a serious tool in the marketer’s toolbox. It works, in ways both obvious (grabbing attention) and subtle (shaping perception, improving recall, boosting goodwill, even loosening the grip on our wallets). Of course, like any tool, it has to be used skillfully: the humor should amplify the message, not bury it. But done right, a bit of wit can be the difference between an ad that gets ignored and one that wins hearts (and sales). So the next time you’re building out an ad campaign, remember: make ’em laugh and make it matter. If you can do both, you won’t just have an audience that’s amused, you’ll have an audience that’s sold.