IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jobman/v29y2022i4d10.1057_s41262-021-00253-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Storytelling in advertisements: understanding the effect of humor and drama on the attitude toward brands

Author

Listed:
  • Dharun Kasilingam

    (MICA – The School of Ideas)

  • Soundararaj Ajitha

    (Amrita School of Business, Amrita University)

Abstract

Storytelling in advertisements has always been recognized as a potent and effective means of branding. However, the core elements of a story that translate to positive consumer attitudes are not fully understood. This study aims at understanding the attitudes of consumers toward storytelling video advertisements that contain humor and drama as their principal elements and how they translate to brand attitudes. Three stimuli-based experimental studies were conducted via Mturk. Study 1 (n = 232) was aimed at understanding the effect of affective reaction and cognitive evaluation on the attitude toward storytelling humorous advertisements. Study 2 (n = 252) considered the effect of the same variables on the attitude toward storytelling dramatic advertisements. Study 3 (n = 284) aimed at understanding the effects of attitude toward humorous and dramatic storytelling advertisements on the attitude toward the brand. Results indicated that the most significant driver of attitude toward humorous storytelling advertisements is affective reaction, whereas cognitive evaluation influences attitude toward dramatic storytelling advertisements. Attitude toward humorous storytelling advertisements contributes more to brand attitude formation than dramatic storytelling advertisements. The results of the study can help marketing executives develop advertisement strategies that can lead to favorable attitudes toward the brands being advertised.

Suggested Citation

  • Dharun Kasilingam & Soundararaj Ajitha, 2022. "Storytelling in advertisements: understanding the effect of humor and drama on the attitude toward brands," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 29(4), pages 341-362, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:29:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1057_s41262-021-00253-7
    DOI: 10.1057/s41262-021-00253-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41262-021-00253-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41262-021-00253-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lammers, H. Bruce & Leibowitz, Laura & Seymour, George Edw. & Hennessey, Judith E., 1983. "Humor and cognitive responses to advertising stimuli: A trace consolidation approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 173-185, June.
    2. Hsu, Shih-Yun & Dehuang, Ning & Woodside, Arch G., 2009. "Storytelling research of consumers' self-reports of urban tourism experiences in China," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(12), pages 1223-1254, December.
    3. Miller, William Ian, 2014. "Feeling Another's Pain: Sympathy and Psychology Saga Style," European Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 55-63, February.
    4. Batra, Rajeev & Ray, Michael L, 1986. "Affective Responses Mediating Acceptance of Advertising," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 13(2), pages 234-249, September.
    5. Ford, Gary T & Smith, Ruth Ann, 1987. "Inferential Beliefs in Consumer Evaluations: An Assessment of Alternative Processing Strategies," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(3), pages 363-371, December.
    6. Jennifer Edson Escalas, 2007. "Self-Referencing and Persuasion: Narrative Transportation versus Analytical Elaboration," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 421-429, December.
    7. Kim, Jae-Eun & Lloyd, Stephen & Cervellon, Marie-Cécile, 2016. "Narrative-transportation storylines in luxury brand advertising: Motivating consumer engagement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 304-313.
    8. Cartwright, Joanna & McCormick, Helen & Warnaby, Gary, 2016. "Consumers' emotional responses to the Christmas TV advertising of four retail brands," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 82-91.
    9. Bierley, Calvin & McSweeney, Frances K & Vannieuwkerk, Renee, 1985. "Classical Conditioning of Preferences for Stimuli," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(3), pages 316-323, December.
    10. Escalas, Jennifer Edson & Stern, Barbara B, 2003. "Sympathy and Empathy: Emotional Responses to Advertising Dramas," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 29(4), pages 566-578, March.
    11. Deighton, John & Romer, Daniel & McQueen, Josh, 1989. "Using Drama to Persuade," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 16(3), pages 335-343, December.
    12. Aaker, Jennifer L & Williams, Patti, 1998. "Empathy versus Pride: The Influence of Emotional Appeals across Cultures," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(3), pages 241-261, December.
    13. Brown, Steven P & Stayman, Douglas M, 1992. "Antecedents and Consequences of Attitude toward the Ad: A Meta-analysis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 19(1), pages 34-51, June.
    14. Allen, Chris T & Madden, Thomas J, 1985. "A Closer Look at Classical Conditioning," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(3), pages 301-315, December.
    15. Quesenberry, Keith A. & Coolsen, Michael K., 2019. "Drama Goes Viral: Effects of Story Development on Shares and Views of Online Advertising Videos," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 1-16.
    16. Anand, Punam & Holbrook, Morris B & Stephens, Debra, 1988. "The Formation of Affective Judgments: The Cognitive-Affective Model versus the Independence Hypothesis," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(3), pages 386-391, December.
    17. Edell, Julie A & Burke, Marian Chapman, 1987. "The Power of Feelings in Understanding Advertising Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 14(3), pages 421-433, December.
    18. Stern, Barbara B, 1994. "Classical and Vignette Television Advertising Dramas: Structural Models, Formal Analysis, and Comsumer Effects," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(4), pages 601-615, March.
    19. Yong You Nie & Austin Rong Da Liang & Dun Ji Chen, 2017. "Assessing the effect of organic-food short storytelling on consumer response," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(15-16), pages 968-985, December.
    20. Gilliam, David A. & Zablah, Alex R., 2013. "Storytelling during retail sales encounters," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 488-494.
    21. Martin Eisend, 2011. "How humor in advertising works: A meta-analytic test of alternative models," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 115-132, June.
    22. Dessart, Laurence, 2018. "Do ads that tell a story always perform better? The role of character identification and character type in storytelling ads," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 289-304.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dessart, Laurence & Pitardi, Valentina, 2019. "How stories generate consumer engagement: An exploratory study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 183-195.
    2. Kirk Kristofferson & Lea Dunn, 2023. "The brand that wasn’t there: The impact of brand displacement on viewer engagement and brand attitude," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 716-745, May.
    3. van Laer, Tom & Feiereisen, Stephanie & Visconti, Luca M., 2019. "Storytelling in the digital era: A meta-analysis of relevant moderators of the narrative transportation effect," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 135-146.
    4. Yong You Nie & Austin Rong Da Liang & Dun Ji Chen, 2017. "Assessing the effect of organic-food short storytelling on consumer response," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(15-16), pages 968-985, December.
    5. Malhotra, Naresh K., 2005. "Attitude and affect: new frontiers of research in the 21st century," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 477-482, April.
    6. Wen Zhang & Daniel R. Fesenmaier, 2018. "Assessing emotions in online stories: comparing self-report and text-based approaches," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 83-95, December.
    7. Ardelet, Caroline & Slavich, Barbara & de Kerviler, Gwarlann, 2015. "Self-referencing narratives to predict consumers' preferences in the luxury industry: A longitudinal study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(9), pages 2037-2044.
    8. Bendell, Bari L. & Kristal, Emma K., 2023. "Five naming strategies to help tell your organization’s story," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 387-404.
    9. Grigsby, Jamie L. & Mellema, Hillary N., 2020. "Negative Consequences of Storytelling in Native Advertising," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 61-78.
    10. Pham, Michel Tuan & Geuens, Maggie & De Pelsmacker, Patrick, 2013. "The influence of ad-evoked feelings on brand evaluations: Empirical generalizations from consumer responses to more than 1000 TV commercials," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 383-394.
    11. Taeho YohAuthor-Name: Meungguk Park, 2015. "An Integrated Model of the Effective Television PSAs on Giving Behavior," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 5(5), pages 233-247, May.
    12. Yoo, Changjo & MacInnis, Deborah, 2005. "The brand attitude formation process of emotional and informational ads," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(10), pages 1397-1406, October.
    13. June-Hyuk Kwon & Sally Kim & Yong-Ki Lee & Kisang Ryu, 2021. "Characteristics of Social Media Content and Their Effects on Restaurant Patrons," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-16, January.
    14. Cao, Xinyue & Qu, Zhirui & Liu, Yan & Hu, JiaJing, 2021. "How the destination short video affects the customers' attitude: The role of narrative transportation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    15. Hamby, Anne & Kim, Hongmin & Spezzano, Francesca, 2024. "Sensational stories: The role of narrative characteristics in distinguishing real and fake news and predicting their spread," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    16. Sonia Capelli & William Sabadie & Olivier Trendel, 2009. "Président, fais moi rire ! La communication politique entre peur et humour," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) halshs-00467982, HAL.
    17. Holak, Susan L. & Havlena, William J., 1998. "Feelings, Fantasies, and Memories: An Examination of the Emotional Components of Nostalgia," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 217-226, July.
    18. Boukis, Achilleas, 2023. "Storytelling in initial coin offerings: Attracting investment or gaining referrals?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    19. Coulter, Keith S. & Punj, Girish, 1999. "Influence of Viewing Context on the Determinants of Attitude Toward the Ad and the Brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 47-58, May.
    20. Hye-Jin Jeon, 2020. "The Mechanism of Empathy and Relationship Commitment Through Emojis: Path to Perspective Taking, Inner Imitation, Emotional Empathy, and Relationship Commitment," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jobman:v:29:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1057_s41262-021-00253-7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.