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Study: Funny Ads Often Missing Messages

Written by Tom Ryan

While funny ads may grab attention, they don't always lead to the ultimate goal for brands of increasing sales and improving brand image as well as brand differentiation.That's at least according to a study from Ace Metrix, the television and video analytics firm.

The study, Is Funny Enough?, analyzed more than 6,500 TV ads that aired between Jan. 1, 2011 and Mar. 31, 2012 to find the funniest ads, the funniest brands, the funniest industries and to determine if humor equated with effectiveness. Amassing more than 1.5 million unsolicited consumer verbatims, Ace Metrix applied advanced semantic processing algorithms to rank ads by their level of humor.

Among the key findings:

  • Approximately one-in-five advertisements on television was funny;
  • While ads that aired during the Super Bowl measured nearly three times as funny as ads that debuted at another time, Super Bowl ads were not any more effective than ads that ran elsewhere during the measurement period;
  • Humorous ads tend to garner higher levels of viewer attention, increased likeability for the ad, and improved willingness to watch the ad again in the future;
  • Humorous ads tend to be light on informative content and also have low relevance, creating lower desire for the advertised products than non-funny ads.

In measuring effectiveness, Ace Metrix analyzed how much consumers like the ad, pay attention to it, and are persuaded by it to want the product or service. On the positive side, Ace Metrix found that being funny might at least prevent people using their remotes to fast forward and change channels.

"If you're equal on relevance and information, almost always funny will win" over unfunny ads, Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix, told Advertising Age, "because it drives the other scores like likability and attention."

Too often, however, Ace Metrix's data found that maximum effectiveness was often traded for maximum humor.

"Messages must be built of substance and should use humor as a supplement — not a replacement — to create the most effective ads," wrote Michael Curran, Ace Metrix's director of insights and analytics, in the white paper.

Despite the messaging challenges, Target and Walmart ranked first and second, respectively, in producing the number of ads over the last five quarters identified as funny. Best Buy ranked seventh.

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