Advertising makes use of a lot of humor because laughter helps to make a connection between the product, brand name and the consumer viewing the advertising. This humor in advertising is not haphazard or random. It is often planned using theories of humor that have been developed over several centuries. These theories arose from a need for philosophers to explain why or what causes people to laugh. Two such theories are Superiority Theory and Incongruity Theory. While neither of these theories explain all human laughter, they can be seen as a motive behind the use of humor in many advertising campaigns.
Superiority Theory
Superiority theory suggests that laughter helps express a person’s feelings of superiority that he/she might have over other people or superiority over some previous situation in his/her life (Morreall, 2012). This theory is strongly tied to the work of philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Rene Descarte. Hobbes, in his book Levithan (1651), described humans as individualistic and competitive. He believed that their competitive nature caused them to think often in terms of being winners or losers. Thus, he suggested that if an individual suddenly felt the superiority of winning, he/she might show that through laughter (Morreall, 2012).
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Descarte, in his Passions of the Soul (1911), associates laughter with mild hatred. He feels that laughter is an expression of derision and scorn for other people because we feel joy at seeing other people experience some sort of evil when they deserve it (Morreall, 2012). Those feelings are most likely to arise when we feel superior to those people. This, along with Hobbes’s observations, is the foundation of superiority theory.
As a theory of humor, superiority theory began to fall out of favor when it was pointed out that people laugh for reasons other than the hatred of another person or because they feel superior to someone or something. For example, we often laugh at ourselves when we do something comical like misplace our glasses on our head but cannot find them. It is quite doubtful that we consider ourselves to be inferior at such times. Thus, superiority theory does not explain all laughter, but there are still occasions when we can see it.
In advertising, it is not as prevalent as other forms of humor, but superiority theory is used in some ads for some products. For example, DirecTV has a long running campaign based on satellite TV delivery being superior to cable TV. In the current version, Rob Lowe is depicted as being a sophisticated viewer with DirecTV, with an alter ego Rob Lowe as a meek and timid user of cable TV in one instance and as a sleazy, greaser Rob Lowe in another instance. The obvious takeaway for the viewer is that having DirecTV is far superior to using cable TV. Everyone knows that the cable TV reference is Comcast with Xfinity, but it is never stated.
Another instance of the use of superiority theory is for Armor All car protectant. In these commercials, a man dressed somewhat like a Viking is depicted as towing away another person’s car because he/she did not use Armor All to protect the car from weathering by rain, snow, wind and sun. The implication is that if you do not use Armor All, then you are an inferior person who does not deserve to keep a car.
Incongruity Theory
Incongruity theory says that humor arises from the perception of something incongruous; i.e. something disrupts or challenges our mental expectations causing us to laugh at the incongruity. We laugh because we are surprised or because something seems to be out of place.
This theory of humor has three rather prominent philosophers behind it. First is Immanuel Kant. In The Critique of Judgment (1790), Kant claims that laughter is an emotion that comes from strained expectations that suddenly become as nothing (Morreall, 20`12). Second, William Hazlitt, in his Letters on the Comic Writers (1819), suggests that laughter comes from the incongruity that arises when an idea disconnects or is bumped against a different feeling (Morreall, 2012). Third, Arthur Schopenhauer, in his The World as Will and Idea (1844), said that laughter is a way of acknowledging the existence of an incongruity between the expectations we hold in our minds and what actually happens (Morreall, 2012). Incongruity occurs when something upsets what we expect to happen because something happens that we did not expect. This form of humor is quite prevalent in today’s advertising.
Perhaps the classic example of incongruous humor in advertising is the Volkswagen Beetle and its appearance as a lemon in a series of ads done by the Leo Burnett advertising agency. The Volkswagen Beetle was an ugly car, but the concept of a lemon in the automobile industry was taboo. That meant the car was worthless and you should not buy it. Any respectable consumer should have looked at those ads and said, “I’m not buying that car.” But they did not say that. They brought thousands of them because the humor made the salient connection that advertisers dream about.
Another example of incongruity theory in advertising is the series of Geico commercials running on television now. The company takes a familiar theme, save 15% on car insurance, and turns it into a completely unexpected outcome. There is a former football running back doing a touchdown dance at the grocery store meat counter. There is an auctioneer behind a checkout register in a grocery store auctioning off a woman’s groceries, and a half dozen other situations that are incongruous with saving money on car insurance. They are humorous.
Finally, there is the Subway commercial where three guys are looking longingly through what looks like a window while one them asks another guy, “Is this your first?’ He nods his head yes and we, the audience, believe they are talking about a new born baby. When the camera pulls back to reveal the inside of a Subway restaurant and the guy holding a foot-long sandwich, we are aware that something incongruous has occurred. It is humorous and it works.
Both the superiority theory and the incongruity theory of humor are still at work in advertising. However, we are likely to see more of the incongruity theory because it is less offensive and it seems to elicit more laughter from those who catch its significance.
- Descartes, R. (19110. The Passions of the Soul, in Philosophical Works of Descartes. Vol. 1, E. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (trs.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hazlitt, W. (1907 [1819]). Lectures on the English Comic Writers. London: Oxford University Press.
- Hobbes, T. (1982 [1651]). Leviathan. New York: Penguin.
- Kant, I. (1911 [1790]). Critique of Judgment. James Creed Meredith (tr.). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Morreall, R. (2012). “Philosophy of Humor.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Palo Alto, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.
- Schopenhauer, A. (1907 [1818/1844]). The World as Will and Idea (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung). tr. R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp, 6th ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
