Effective Use of Humor in Magazine Advertising

Effective Use of Humor in Magazine Advertising

The purpose of a magazine advertisement is to attract the reader’s attention and hold it long enough for the reader to recognize and remember the name brand of the product being advertised. This is achieved, in many cases, by the use of a comedic image or phrase. These, hopefully, will cause the reader to sit up and look further into what just made him or her smile or even laugh. This technique is seen quite often in the pages of the latest issue of ArtByte magazine. ArtByte is a relative newcomer to the world of computer and technology-related magazines. It is aimed at the upper teen to lower thirties technologically-minded individual who has a somewhat wry sense of humor. Many of the ads in this magazine reflect the idea of ArtByte being aimed at this demographic in their marketing techniques by adding humor to their advertisements. But they still make an attempt to appeal to the high-tech reader. This makes for an interesting balance of technologically-minded text and humorously-appealing imagery.

Listen.com, for example, makes full use of this technique (15), as does Aquent talent agency (0,1). The former advertisement depicts a young man, with whom the reader is meant to identify, who apparently works at a diner as a short-order cook. But, as a sight gag, instead of flipping the burgers on the fryer in front of him, he has opted to pretend that he is a disk jockey (a symbol of the high-tech, modern popular culture) and act as if he were spinning and scratching the aforementioned burgers like records on a turntable. The accompanying text reads: "There’s music everywhere, if you know where to look." This makes for quite the funny image, but most likely only to those who would recognize just what he is doing (young, culturally aware, technologically minded individuals). The smaller text, just below the headline reveals that Listen.com is actually an online music database that allows the technologically able consumer to (the same demographic targeted by the rest of this magazine) to find and download MP3s, an internet-based music format. There are also digital videos, and links to other music-related websites. These features have become a mainstay of the modern internet user’s digital repertoire. These advertised features appeal almost instantly to anyone looking for a fast and easy way to access music and information via the internet.