Humor and Persuasion

Humor and Persuasion
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Humor plays a very integral part in the persuasion of an individual, especially in an advert. For instance, it is used to attract a consumer of a given product who has a negative attitude towards a model or a brand of that particular product. After the attraction of a consumer, it becomes easy to convince the consumer of the reasons why the brand that is being advertised is different from that which s/he has a negative experience about. The fact that humor attracts buyers, it results in the high sale being experienced on the good that is being advertised. Secondly, humor is used to change the attitude of the buyers (Cline & Kellaris, 1999). For instance, the attitudes of an individual are easily changed since the use of humor helps to gain the attention of the listener or viewers however much they were not willing to focus on the advert. Similarly, when humor is used, the listen or the consumer does not have much time to relate the effectiveness of the product to that which is used to persuade him/her through the humor (Cline & Kellaris, 1999). The use of humor in persuasion calms down a counter-argument that may exist between the consumer and the seller and hence making it easy for the two to reach an agreement where the sale of the product is realized. And also the perception concerning the product can be solved using humor. For example, when a product has a close substitute or a competitor product, it becomes easier to convince the consumer through humor than the use of strong arguments.

In addition, use of humor on an advert induces distraction on the target audience, and therefore the consumer is likely to purchase the product out of influence made through the humor and gives the product a trial.
On the contrary, there are several risks that are experienced when attempting to use humor in persuading a consumer of a product. For instance, it is very difficult or in some cases very ineffective to use humor on products that require much consultation such as the life insurance covers. In such cases, however, the seller is likely to lose several customers since they will not be interested in buying the product anymore (Cline & Kellaris, 1999). It is also very risky to use humor persuasion on electronic products that require deeper inquiries on the functionalities and the specifications that the product has, for example, the purchasing of a laptop. And the fact that the electronic products need a deeper understanding, it will be worthless using the humor to persuade the users of the electronic product (Cline & Kellaris, 1999). It is also considered as a waste of time by the consumer who intends to buy a product advertised in a newspaper while there are several words that are used to create humor. In written adverts, however, it becomes very difficult for the buyers to read the humor created before reaching the main information about the product that is being advertised. And for that matter, the buyers tend to ignore reading the whole advert and assume that the seller is not serious about the selling of the products s/he is advertising to the public.
According to previous theory, it gives a suggestion concerning the importance of attitude concerning purchase behavior (Cline & Kellaris, 1999). Therefore effective advertisement using humor influences the sale of a product. Similarly, another psychological theory exclaims that the human processing of information is brought about by the external factor that attracts attention and for that matter, the use of humor becomes very useful.
Reference
Cline, T., & Kellaris, J. (1999). The Joint Impact of Humor and Argument Strength in a Print Advertising Context: A Case for Weaker Arguments, 16(1), 69-86.