Violence Dressed in Humor: Comedic Violence in Advertising

Abstract

This paper investigates the concepts of humor and violence and their complex relationships contextualised in the advertising domain. Thus, the main theories of humor and the most important elements from media violence paradigms are critically pointed out. The effects of comedic violence in advertising may be positive (great involvement with the ad message, retention of brand information, higher pass-along probability), and also negative (offending the audience, desensitization, damaging the reputation and the brand equity). A lot of factors change the perception of comedic violent ads (gender, social norm beliefs etc.), so that a multidimensional analysis of consumer perceptions is needed if we want to draw a more accurate picture of this phenomenon. The analysis of the specific ad that I developed in the second part of this paper showed clearly the interplay between perceived humor and perceived violence and also the relevance of the cultural background in its interpretation.