AN EXAMINATION OF COGNITIVE-FACTORS RELATED TO HUMOROUSNESS IN TELEVISION ADVERTISING

Humor is a commonly used communication tool in American advertising, b ut little is known about what makes an ad more or less humorous. This study examines a sample of television ads to determine whether recent psycholinguistic theories of humor can help explain why certain ads th at intend to be humorous are perceived as such while others are less s uccessful. For example, ads which employed a contrast between everyday life and the unexpected were generally perceived as more humorous tha n those employing a contrast between everyday life and the impossible. The theoretical and applied implications of such findings are discuss ed.