The effects of sexist humor and brand familiarity on responses to television commercials
- Autores: Nicoleta Groza
- Directores de la Tesis: Jordi Fernández Cuesta (dir. tes.), Marc Ajenjo Cosp (codir. tes.), Daniel Tena Parera (tut. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2014
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: David Roca (presid.), Mònika Jiménez Morales (secret.), Bernat López Lopez (voc.)
- Materias:
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- Resumen
Each day, consumers are bombarded with an increasing number of advertising messages on television, radio, print and posters (Brassington and Pettitt, 2000). For a reason, creativity in advertising represents a point of differentiation in a competitive environment and has turned into one of the primary factors of advertising effectiveness (Kover, 1995; Ang, 2000; Stone, 2000; Till, 2005). Following this idea, this investigation is an initial step towards filling the gap concerning the use of sexist humor in advertising. The purpose was to examine effects of sexist humor on consumers¿ reactions in familiar brand context. The primary objective of this study was to examine the attitude towards the ad, towards the brand and the purchase intention-regarding them all as indicators of advertising efficiency. On the other hand, the brand interest and appropriate message were also examined. As a further matter, this study also investigated the effects of sexist humor and brand familiarity on ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention from a gender point of view. Because of the lack of information about the topic, humorous, sexist and control ads were used in order to be compared with sexist humor in advertising. A lab experiment was conducted using 8 commercials and 2 of their aspects were considered to be investigated: brand familiarity and unfamiliarity and the type of ad (humor, sexism, sexist humor and control). The participants selected for this study were students enrolled at Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
The empirical results of the current study point out that advertisements using sexist humor to advertise a familiar brand have a positive effect on the consumer¿s responses. Specifically, results highlight that consumers react more favourably to the ad, the advertised brand and the purchase intention when a sexist humor message version is used to advertise a familiar brand. In an unfamiliar brands context, results proved that humor is the only one increasing ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention. On the other hand, results of brand interest confirmed that after watching the familiar brands, the control ad elicits the highest brand interest while the sexist commercial provoked the lowest level of brand interest. When examined from gender point of view, results showed that women¿s ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention is higher after watching the sexist humor ad for familiar brands. Also, men¿s ad attitude and brand attitude is higher after watching the sexist ad when used for both familiar and unfamiliar brands. At the same time, women¿s ad attitude, brand attitude and purchase intention diminishes after watching the sexist ad used both for familiar and unfamiliar brand.
Although the study has certain limitations, it represents a first attempt to identify the effects of sexist humor and brand familiarity from the perspective of the consumer. Consequently, theoretical and practical implications are discussed to evaluate messages in present advertising.
