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Journal of Consumer Research Inc.

Responses to Information Incongruency in Advertising: The Role of Expectancy, Relevancy,and HumorAuthor(s): Yih Hwai Lee and Charlotte MasonSource: Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 26, No. 2 (September 1999), pp. 156-169Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209557.

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Responses to Information Incongruency

in Advertising: The Role of Expectancy,

Relevancy, and Humor

YIH HWAI LEECHARLOTTE MASON*

Two studies examining the effects of expectancy, relevancy, and humor onattitude formation are presented. Following previous research, expectancy refersto the degree to which an item or a piece of information falls into some prede-termined pattern or structure evoked by an ad. Relevancy refers to the degree towhich an item or a piece of information contributes to the identification of theprimary message communicated by the ad. Across two studies that examined

immediate response, we found that information expectancy and relevancy inter-act to produce different levels of attitude favorability. Although ads with unex-pected-relevant information elicited more favorable attitudes than did ads withexpected-relevant information, ads with unexpected-irrelevant informationyielded less favorable attitudes that did ads with expected-relevant information.Furthermore, humor and relevancy interact where a humorous execution wasfound to have a favorable effect in ads with unexpected-irrelevant information butnot in ads with unexpected-relevant information. In addition, the second studyfurther examined delayed responses in which the findings revealed a differentpattern. Particularly noteworthy is a sleeper effect for ads with unexpected-irrelevant information where attitudesfor both the ad and the brand improved overtime. We conclude with implications and suggestions for future research.

On any given day, the average American is exposed toabout 300 ad messages. That is 9,900 a month, or

109,500 a year (McCarthy 1991). To rise above this clutter,advertisers try to create advertisements that are novel, hu-morous, or somehow attention getting to ad viewers. Thetheoretical underpinnings of this practice have been dem-onstrated in consumer research under the general term in-congruency, or incongruity. For instance, past studieshave looked at incongruity between verbal and picture in-formation in print ads (Houston, Childers, and Heckler1987), between picture information and an evoked ad theme

(Heckler and Childers 1992), and between an ad and anevoked ad schema (Goodstein 1993).

To further research on information incongruency, Heck-ler and Childers (1992) proposed a two-dimensional con-ceptualization of incongruency: expectancy and relevancy.Expectancy refers to the degree to which a piece of infor-mation falls into some predetermined pattern or structureevoked by an ad. Relevancy refers to the degree to which apiece of information contributes to the identification of theprimary message communicated by the ad. Heckler andChilders (1992) found that recall differs between congruentand incongruent information. Unexpected information elic-ited better recall than expected information, and irrelevant

information yielded inferior recall compared to relevantinformation. By examining recall and recognition measures,they demonstrated that the two dimensions are distinct.Although these two dimensions capture a wide gamut ofincongruent information, both theoretical and anecdotal ev-idence suggest that humor may be another important exe-cutional factor that distinguishes between different types ofinformation incongruency. Weinberger and Spotts (1989)suggest that as much as 24.4 percent of prime-time televi-sion advertising in the United States is intended to behumorous. In addition, Raskin (1985) and Alden, Hoyer,and Lee (1993) suggest that humor works by contrasting

*Yih Hwai Lee is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing,National University of Singapore. Charlotte Mason is an associate profes-sor of marketing, Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of NorthCarolina at Chapel Hill. The authors gratefully thank Kevin Keller for hisguidance throughout the dissertation research on which this article is based.The first author thanks Julie Edell, Michelle Hunt, and William Ware fortheir advice while serving on his dissertation committee. He also appreci-ates the helpful comments of Siew Meng Leong and the reviewers andeditors. The research grant support to the first author from the NationalUniversity of Singapore is gratefully acknowledged. Please send all cor-respondence to Yih Hwai Lee, Department of Marketing, Faculty ofBusiness Administration, National University of Singapore, 10 Kent RidgeCrescent, Singapore 119260, Republic of Singapore; e-mail: [email protected]; telephone: (65) 874-3168; fax: (65) 779-5941

156

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unexpected information with an existing schema structure.Thus, we extend Heckler and Childerss (1992) expectancy-relevancy classification to include information incongru-ency through humor. This extended classification is exam-ined for its effects on attitude and memory for

advertisements.Although much is known about the memory superiorityof ads with incongruent information, their effect on con-sumer attitudes remains unexplored. Such study is war-ranted to address at least two important issues: Do differentforms of incongruency affect attitude formation differently?And if so, do incongruent conditions that foster greatermemory recall also have the same favorable effect on atti-tude formation? Alternatively, is there a trade-off involvedbetween memory and persuasive effectiveness?

Among the three dimensions of incongruency proposedhere, much research has examined humors effect on atti-tudes. However, conflicting findings (see Weinberger andGulas [1992] for a review) have led researchers to abandon

the notion of whether or not humor enhances advertisingeffectiveness. Instead, the research agenda asks, when ishumor effective? For instance, Chattopadhyay and Basu(1990) showed that the effectiveness of a humorous adcompared to its nonhumorous version depends on priorevaluation of the advertised brand. A humorous ad wasmore effective in changing attitudes and choice behaviorwhen prior evaluation of the brand was favorable. Thereverse was true with a negative prior attitude. In thisresearch, examining humor together with expectancy andrelevancy allows us to examine the effects of different typesof humor to better understand the conditions under whichhumor affects attitudes.

Accordingly, we investigate the effects of the expectancy,relevancy, and humor level of advertising information onboth memory and evaluation measures. Although our find-ings regarding evaluation measures are the primary contri-bution of this research, our results related to the memorymeasures strengthen previous findings on the effects ofinformation incongruency. To achieve these purposes, weconducted two studies. The first examines the effects ofinformation incongruency on attitude formation immedi-ately after ad exposure. The second replicates the findings ofthe first study and those of Heckler and Childers (1992) andextends them by examining both attitude and memory ef-fects after a significant time delay from the initial ad expo-sure.

WHAT IS INCONGRUENCY?CONCEPTUAL DEFINITION

AND DELINEATION

Heckler and Childers (1992) proposed that incongruentinformation can be classified into two dimensionsexpect-ancy and relevancydepending on its relationship with anad theme. To illustrate the four conditions of (in)congruen-cies along the 2 (expected and unexpected) 2 (relevantand irrelevant) conceptualization in an advertising context,

consider a courier service ad with a headline and ad copytouting fast delivery servicean ad with a theme of fastdelivery. Expected picture information in the ad could be afleet of delivery trucks cruising at high speed. Unexpectedpicture information could be a fleet of delivery trucks with

bullet-shaped containers cruising at high speed. Both pic-tures are relevant, that is, contributing to the identificationof the ad theme, because the pictures attempt to convey fastspeed. However, they differ in their degree of novelty (or fitwith existing schema) in attempting to convey the fastdelivery theme.

In contrast, expected-irrelevant picture information couldbe a group of smiling delivery personsnothing extraordi-nary about the picture. Unexpected-irrelevant picture infor-mation could be an elephant hauling few packages. Bothpictures are irrelevant because they do not help to identifythe fast delivery theme. However, if the ad theme wasservice friendliness rather than fast delivery, a picture show-ing delivery trucks cruising at high speed would be irrele-

vant, and a picture with smiling delivery persons would berelevant. The important point is that the nature of (in)con-gruency of any ad information is determined by its relation-ship with the ad theme.

Regarding humor and its relationship with incongruency,it should be noted that humor information can only beunexpected information (either relevant or irrelevant), whileunexpected information can be either humorous or not.Although the use of humor in ads is a common executionalapproach, or even expected by media audiences, the specificinformation in humor is, by nature, unexpected. For exam-ple, although we expect to be amused by jokes when we goto a comedy club, the specific content of each joke is

unexpectedthat is the basis of its entertainment value.Furthermore, Raskins (1985) theory of humor argues thatjokes often produce a light-hearted response by includingcognitive, structural contrasts between expected and unex-pected situations. Similarly, Alden et al. (1993) suggest thathumor is essentially some form of incongruent contrast.Thus, humorous information (at least on the first exposure)is unexpected information (if the potential audience is toappreciate its humor). As a result, in addition to the fourforms of (in)congruency from crossing expectancy and rel-evancy, two additional unexpected forms are introduced byconsidering humor. This yields four unexpected conditions:two with a humorous execution (relevant and irrelevant) andtwo without humor (relevant and irrelevant).

STUDY 1: IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF

INCONGRUENCY ON ATTITUDEFORMATION

Effects of Relevancy on Attitude Formation

Relevancy refers to whether an ad component contributesto the main message communication. Relevant componentscontain information useful to support the ad theme, whileirrelevant ones do not. An exhaustive review of the litera-ture by Muehling and McCann (1993) found that ad atti-

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tudes are higher when the ad contains useful information.Thus, we propose a main effect of relevancy as follows:

H1: The presence of relevant (whether expected orunexpected) information, compared to irrelevantinformation, will lead to (a) more favorable ad

evaluation, (b) more favorable thoughts about thead, (c) more favorable brand evaluation, and (d)more favorable thoughts about the brand.

Effects of Expectancy on Attitude Formation

Berlyne (1960) theorized that when an individual is con-fronted with a novel object, the person will be morearoused; and the most effective means of reducing arousal issimply to explore the source of novelty. In addition, Berlyne(1971) argues for the pleasurable effects of incongruentstimuli. One such effect is what he termed arousal jag,where ambiguity of the stimulus initially causes tension,

which is then resolved once the reader succeeds in under-standing the message. Novelty is related to unexpectancybecause, by nature, unexpected information is conveyed ina distinctive or unusual manner. As such, we argue that adswith unexpected information, relative to those with ex-pected information, will elicit greater cognitive elaboration.Because the increased elaboration is primarily favorable, weposit that ad and brand responses will be more favorable inads with unexpected information.

H2: The presence of unexpected-relevant information,compared to expected-relevant information, willlead to (a) more favorable ad evaluation, (b) morefavorable thoughts about the ad, (c) more favor-

able brand evaluation, and (d) more favorablethoughts about the brand.

However, this evaluative advantage of unexpected infor-mation over expected information is dependent on thereader successfully resolving the incongruity. An assump-tion underlying the positive effects of an incongruent stim-ulus is that the reader must successfully decode the admessage. In other words, for unexpected information togenerate favorable evaluative responses, the viewer must beable to make sense of the ad information after the increasedelaboration. In this respect, one obstacle to successful de-coding is when the unexpected information is also irrelevantin nature. For unexpected-relevant information, the cogni-

tive elaboration may be rewarding in the form of tensionreduction (Berlyne 1971) from understanding the clevernessof the incongruity with respect to the main ad message.However, unexpected-irrelevant information has no connec-tion with the ad theme or the ad copy. When elaborated on,the process may lead to frustration rather than resolutionfrom (1) failing to understand the connection between thepiece of information with the rest of the ad, and as aconsequence, (2) failing to reduce tension.

We argue that this heightened futile elaboration producedby the unexpected-irrelevant information will generate un-favorable thoughts and evaluative responses relative to that

of ads with expected-relevant information. Hence, althoughads with unexpected-relevant information should producemore favorable evaluative responses than ads with expect-ed-relevant information, ads with unexpected-irrelevant in-formation should produce less favorable responses than will

ads with expected-relevant information.Comparing the unexpected-irrelevant and expected-irrel-evant conditions, we expect unexpected-irrelevant informa-tion to elicit more negative thoughts about the ad and brandcompared to expected-irrelevant information. The unex-pected-irrelevant information condition represents the great-est incongruity compared to the other three conditions be-cause the information possesses two distinct forms ofincongruent characteristics (Heckler and Childers 1992). Assuch, we argue that cognitive elaboration of unexpected-irrelevant information will be more extensive than in theexpected-irrelevant information, and thus, more unfavorablethoughts are likely. Since the amount and favorableness ofcognitive elaboration determine the amount and direction of

attitude change (Kiselius and Sternthal 1984, 1986), wepropose the following:

H3: The presence of unexpected-irrelevant informa-tion, compared to expected-irrelevant informa-tion, will lead to (a) less favorable ad evaluation,(b) more unfavorable thoughts about the ad, (c)less favorable brand evaluation, and (d) moreunfavorable thoughts about the brand.

Effects of Humor on Attitude Formation

Humor has been shown to enhance liking for the ad (e.g.,Belch and Belch 1984) and for the brand (e.g., Gelb and

Pickett 1983). In addition, the influence of humor throughaffective mechanisms such as transfer of liking for the ad tothe brand has been demonstrated (e.g., Aaker, Stayman, andHagerty 1986). Assuming exposure to humor tends to putpeople into a positive mood, research on mood providesadditional evidence for the positive effects of humor on adand brand evaluations. Batra and Stayman (1990) foundpositive moods indirectly affect attitudes through two cog-nitive processesa bias against the generation of negativethoughts and a reduction in total cognition elaboration. Thissuggests that the unexpected-irrelevant condition may ben-efit more from humor because the predominant thoughts inthis condition are unfavorable. Thus, we posit that humor

may produce more favorable ad and brand evaluations.However, it is also likely that ads that elicit unfavorable adand brand evaluations will benefit more from the favorableeffect of humor:

H4: For ads containing unexpected-relevant informa-tion, the humor version, compared to the nonhu-mor version, will lead to (a) more favorable adevaluation and (b) more favorable brand evalua-tion.

H5: For ads containing unexpected-irrelevant infor-mation, the humor version, compared to the non-

JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH158


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humor version, will lead to (a) more favorable adevaluation and (b) more favorable brand evalua-tion.

H6: The positive effect of humor on (a) ad and (b)brand evaluation is greater in ads with unexpect-

ed-irrelevant information than in ads with unex-pected-relevant information.

Figure 1 presents a pictorial summary of Hypotheses 16.

METHOD

Expectancy (two levels), relevancy (two levels), and hu-mor (two levels) were operationalized as between-subjectsvariables. As discussed earlier, since humor information isby nature unexpected, a nested design was used. In otherwords, the expected

HUMOR-relevant and expected

HUMOR-

irrelevant conditions were missing from the otherwise full 2 2 2 factorial design.

Stimulus Development

Black and white print ads representing the six conditionswere developed. Two sets of ads were created to serve as areplication factor. Considering the subject pools productknowledge and familiarity, ads for personal computers andcomputer monitors were selected. Fictitious brand nameswere used to control for effects of prior brand attitude.Following the procedure in Heckler and Childers (1992),incongruency was manipulated through the picture compo-nent of print ads (see Heckler and Childers 1992, p. 478).

The verbal components for the ads were the same acrosstreatments. Because the establishment of an ad theme toserve as a point of contrast is central to our hypotheses, weused a headline in our ads to cue the ad theme or primarymessage benefit.

The headlines were determined by importance to theappropriate product category. For the computer ads, Un-leash the Power was chosen to convey fast computingpower. For the computer monitor ads, Image SharpnessYour Eyes Will Appreciate was used to set up a picture-clarity ad theme. The rest of the ad copy (verbal component)of each product ad was written to support the respective adthemes. As an example, for the computer ads, the expected-relevant version showed a picture of a computer with light-ning serving as a background, while the expected-irrelevantversion simply showed a computer. For unexpected-nonhu-mor pictures, a computer in fast motion was used for therelevant version, while the irrelevant version showed acomputer with its screen smashed by a hammer. Finally, a

computer that looks like a race-car engine served as theunexpected-relevant-humor picture, while a computer withflying pigs in the background provided the picture for theunexpected-irrelevant-humor condition.

Pretest

The picture for each of the six conditions was designedand pretested to represent the appropriate thematic relation-ship.1 Ninety subjects were randomly assigned to the six

1With a separate 120 subject sample, we assessed liking for the picture

FIGURE 1

PICTORIAL SUMMARY OF HYPOTHESES 16



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conditions. Each subject saw two ads (one for each prod-uct), yielding cell sizes of 15. Following carefully wordedinstructions and explanations about the three dimensionstested in this study, subjects rated their agreement with thefollowing statements using six-point scales:

1. The degree to which you expected the advertise-ment to use the particular picture to convey its mainmessage (1 expected, 6 unexpected; to test thelevel of expectancy).

2. The degree to which you think the picture used inthe ad conveys the main message that the ad istrying to convey (1 not at all, 6 very much; totest the level of relevancy).

3. The degree to which you think the picture in theadvertisement is humorous (1 not humorous, 6 humorous; to test the level of humor).

Analysis of variance showed main effects for expectancy,

relevancy, and humor to be significant for both sets of ads.For the computer ads, the unexpected conditions were ratedmore unexpected than the expected conditions (X 4.4 vs.

X 2.9, F(1, 84) 31.68, p .001). The relevant condi-tions were rated more relevant than the irrelevant conditions(X 4.11 vs. X 2.91, F(1, 84) 18.8, p .001), andhumor ratings were higher in the humor than in the nonhu-mor conditions (X 3.97 vs. X 2.37,F(1, 84) 43.1,p .001). Similarly, for the monitor ads, the unexpectedconditions were rated more unexpected than the expectedconditions (X 4.18 vs. X 2.77, F(1, 84) 33.85, p .001). The relevant conditions were rated more relevantthan the irrelevant conditions (X 4.51 vs. X 3.0, F(1,

84) 24.03, p .001), and humor ratings were higher inthe humor than the nonhumor conditions (X 3.8 vs. X 2.02, F(1, 84) 39.8, p .001).2

Dependent Measures. Following Wright (1980), sub-jects cognitive responses were measured immediately afterthe ad exposure. Next, ad and brand attitudes were col-

lected. This was followed by manipulation checks, whichcontained similar statements to that of the pretest. The samesequence was repeated for the second ad exposure.

Cognitive Responses. Cognitive responses were ob-tained following standard procedures in which subjects

were asked to write down their thoughts about the ad andbrand. Two independent judges coded the responses intofive categories depending on whether the thought was di-rected toward the brand (favorable and unfavorable), or thead (favorable and unfavorable). Thoughts not specific toeither the ad or brand were aggregated under otherthoughts.

Evaluations. Subjects were asked to indicate their ex-tent of agreement with attitudinal statements using seven-point scales. To evaluate attitude toward the ad (A

ad), the

statements were as follows: I dislike the ad; the ad isappealing to me; the ad is attractive to me; the ad isinteresting to me; and I think the ad is bad. To evaluate

attitude toward the brand (Ab), the statements were asfollows: the brand in the ad is likely to possess the stated adclaims; I react favorably to the brand; I feel positive towardthe brand; I dislike the brand.

Experimental Procedure

Subjects were 120 undergraduates, randomly assigned toeach treatment condition. They were told that they wereparticipating in an advertising-related study, the cover storywas that managers and advertising agencies were interestedin consumer input early in the ad-design process for a newproduct. Subjects were told that the ads would be in draft as

opposed to final publishable form. Each subject received abooklet containing the two stimulus ads, the dependentmeasures as well as the manipulation checks. The presen-tation order of the two ads was counterbalanced. No timelimit was given and subjects completed the questionnaire attheir own pace.

RESULTS

Cronbachs alphas for inter-item reliability for the five-item A

adindex and four-item A

bwere .91 and .92, respec-

tively. Consequently, the average scores for the two indiceswere used for subsequent analysis. The two coders who

were blind to the treatments coded thoughts into the fivecategories (r .93). Disagreements were resolved by dis-cussion among the coders and researchers, and a singlescore was entered for further analysis. Table 1 reports themeans and standard deviations of all the dependent mea-sures.

Manipulation Checks

Tests for manipulation checks used the same analysisreported for the stimulus pretests. The results showed thatmain effects for ad expectancy, ad relevancy, and ad humor

components to address the alternative hypothesis that picture likability maydrive our results. The ANOVA tests showed no significant differences inpicture liking among the six treatment cells ( ps .1) except for the maineffects of humor in both sets of ads. The significant main humor effect isnot surprising given that several studies have shown that humor informa-tion is better liked than nonhumor information (Belch and Belch 1984;Gelb and Pickett 1983). The absence of significant interaction effects found

in studies 1 and 2 suggest that it is information incongruity and not theliking for the pictures per se that affected attitude formation. In addition,the significant main effect of humor on picture liking suggests that both theunexpectedHUMOR-relevant and unexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant pictures werebetter liked than the other nonhumor pictures. In contrast, findings fromstudies 1 and 2 suggest that attitudes toward the ad and brand for ads withunexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant pictures were not significantly more favorablethan in the other nonhumor conditions.

2Although the analyses confirm the appropriateness of the picture ma-nipulation, it should be noted that the mean humor ratings for the humorconditions in both sets of ads range around the mid-scale point. As such,the level of humor in the humor conditions is modest at best. Althoughwe certainly would like the picture in the humor conditions to be morehumorous, we were limited by the need to keep the pictorial information ineach condition as equal as we possibly could.



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were all statistically significant (p-values .05) for bothcomputer and monitor pictures.3

Hypotheses Testing

In this study, the between-subjects factors were expect-ancy, relevancy, humor, and the order of ad presentation(nonsignificant and dropped from further analysis). The twoad exposures were treated as a within-subject repeated mea-sure. For each dependent variable, ANOVAs and plannedcomparisons similar to the procedure outlined in Levine(1991, chap. 4) were performed. In addition, Hypotheses13 were tested by comparing the nonhumor conditions,while Hypotheses 4 and 5 were examined by comparinghumor and nonhumor versions of ads with relevant andirrelevant information, respectively. We present the resultsfor Aad, Ab, and cognitive responses in that order.

Results for Attitude toward the Ad and Brand. As pre-dicted, main effects of relevancy were significant for bothAad

and Ab

, supporting Hypothesis 1a and 1c, respectively(relevant 4.6, and irrelevant 3.22, F(1, 114) 84.44,

p .001 for Aad

; relevant 4.15, and irrelevant 3.12,F(1, 114) 48.69,p .001 for A

b). However, these main

effects were qualified by the interactions between expect-ancy and relevancy. As posited in Hypothesis 2a, unexpect-ed-relevant information produced higher A

ad than did ex-

pected-relevant information (Aad 4.74 vs. 4.17, F(1, 114)

6.67,p .05). However, Ab

was similar between the twoconditions (A

b 4.21 vs. 3.95, F(1, 114) 1.35, p .1),

contrary to Hypothesis 2c. The unexpectedNONHUMOR

-irrel-evant condition in turn generated less favorable A

adand A

b

than did the expected-irrelevant condition, supporting Hy-

pothesis 3a and 3c, respectively (Aad 2.54 vs. 3.29, F(1,

114) 10.66, p .01; Ab 2.53 vs. 3.33, F(1, 114)

12.7, p .01).The results for humor revealed that the humor version of

unexpected-irrelevant information had more favorable Aad

and Ab

than its nonhumor counterpart, supporting bothHypothesis 5a and 5b (A

ad 3.78 vs. 2.54, F(1, 114)

29.36,p .01; Ab 3.46 vs. 2.53, F(1, 114) 17.5,p

.01). However, contrary to Hypothesis 4a and 4b, Aad

andAb

were not significantly different between humor andnonhumor versions of unexpected-relevant information (A

ad

4.88 vs. 4.74, F(1, 114) .38, p .5; Ab 4.28 vs.

4.21, F(1, 114) .09, p .5).Hypothesis 6a and 6b posited that the positive effect of

humor on Aad

and Ab

is greater in ads with irrelevant

information than in ads with relevant information. Theinteraction between relevancy and humor supported Hy-pothesis 6a for A

ad (F(1, 114) 11.89, p .01) and

Hypothesis 6b for Ab

(F(1, 114) 7.73, p .01). Thenature of the significant interaction for A

ad(A

b) is given by

the combined results for Hypotheses 4a (4b) and 5a (4b)reported earlier. Specifically, humor effect was significantin the irrelevant but not in the relevant conditions.

Results for Cognitive Responses. As predicted in Hy-pothesis 1b and 1d, more favorable ad and brand thoughtswere produced under relevant than irrelevant conditions (ad .45 vs. .14, F(1, 114) 8.83, p .01; brand .30 vs.

.05, F(1, 114)

17.81, p

.001). Contrary to Hypothesis2b and 2d, no differences in favorable ad and brand thoughtswere found between unexpected

NONHUMOR-relevant and ex-

pected-relevant information (ad .45 vs. .23, F(1, 114) 2.79, p .1 ; brand .38 vs. .23, F(1, 114) 3.08, p .1). The results also show significantly more unfavorablead thoughts were elicited from unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrel-

evant information than from expected-irrelevant informa-tion, supporting Hypothesis 3b (ad 1.00 vs. .58,F(1, 114) 7.27, p .01). In contrast, the difference in negativebrand thoughts produced between unexpected

NONHUMOR-

irrelevant and expected-irrelevant information posited in

3For the computer ads, the ANOVA results were significant for expect-ancy (unexpected 4.26, expected 2.78,F(1, 114) 30.03,p .001),relevancy (relevant 3.86, irrelevant 2.41, F(1, 114) 46.98, p .001), and humor (humor 3.75, nonhumor 1.66,F(1, 114) 73.81,

p .001). For the monitor ads, the ANOVA results were significant forexpectancy (unexpected 4.31, expected 2.58, F(1, 114) 57.33, p .001), relevancy (relevant 4.13, irrelevant 2.75,F(1, 114) 52.89,

p .001), and humor (humor 3.43, nonhumor 1.89, F(1, 114) 33.55, p .001).

TABLE 1

MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR STUDY 1

Treatment cells

Attitudes

Cognitive responses

Aad Ab

Positive adthoughts

Negative adthoughts

Positive brandthoughts

Negative brandthoughts

Othersthoughts

Expected-relevant 4.17 (.99) 3.95 (.93) .23 (.48) .20 (.41) .23 (.43) .08 (.27) 1.00 (.85)Expected-irrelevant 3.29 (1.00) 3.33 (.96) .15 (.48) .58 (.60) .05 (.22) .33 (.53) 1.00 (1.20)UnexpectedHUMOR-relevant 4.88 (.96) 4.28 (.92) .68 (.83) .23 (.43) .30 (.47) .10 (.30) 1.25 (.95)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-relevant 4.74 (.99) 4.21 (1.03) .45 (.71) .24 (.48) .38 (.58) .07 (.26) 1.52 (1.19)UnexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant 3.78 (.94) 3.46 (1.10) .28 (.51) .30 (.56) .08 (.27) .20 (.41) .90 (1.19)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant 2.54 (.92) 2.53 (.88) .00 (.00) 1.00 (.74) .03 (.16) .39 (.59) 1.73 (1.67)

NOTE.The reported means are the means averaged across the two ads; numbers in parentheses represent standard deviations.



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Hypothesis 3d was not significant (brand .39 vs. .33,F(1,114) .44, p .5).

Additional Analyses. While humor increased Aad

andAb

in the irrelevant condition, it had no augmenting effect inthe relevant condition. To get a better understanding for

these findings, we analyzed the cognitive response data toexamine the effects of humor on the composition of eachcategory of thought. Comparing the humor and nonhumorversions of unexpected-relevant and unexpected-irrelevantinformation, the results revealed that humor did not affectthe amount of positive ad and brand thoughts for either therelevant or irrelevant conditions. In contrast, humor signif-icantly reduced the amount of negative ad and brandthoughts under the irrelevant condition, suggesting that hu-mor works through minimizing negative thought genera-tion.4

DISCUSSION (STUDY 1)

The results from study 1 support the basic notion thatexpectancy, relevancy, and humor affect attitudinal re-sponse differently. Although incongruity in the form ofunexpectancy tends to elicit favorable attitudinal responses,this effect depends on the relevance of the incongruentinformation. Both expected-irrelevant and unex-pected

NONHUMOR-irrelevant information produced less fa-

vorable ad and brand responses than did the relevant con-ditions. However, our findings suggest that introducinghumor into irrelevant information significantly lessens thenegative effects of irrelevancy on evaluations. Contrary toour expectations, the positive effects of humor were foundto be significant only in the unexpected

HUMOR-irrelevant

condition. One possible reason why humor did not workunder the relevant condition is given by our finding thathumor reduced negative thought generation but did notincrease positive thought generation. Since thoughts gener-ated under the relevant condition are predominantly favor-able, the humor effect may be limited. Although the resultsof study 1 provide general support for our hypotheses,several issues warrant further investigation. We conductedstudy 2 to address the following points.

Conceptual Manipulation

To provide stronger evidence for our conceptual manip-ulations, several additional measures and checks were in-

cluded in study 2. First, to ensure comparability of ourincongruency manipulations with those of Heckler andChilders (1992), recall measures were taken in addition toevaluative responses. To the extent that we can replicate thepattern of recall findings from Heckler and Childers (1992),

greater confidence can be placed in our successful manip-ulation of theme-based incongruency. Second, an ease ofunderstanding manipulation check used in Heckler andChilders (1992) was added in study 2.

Conflicting Findings

We hypothesized that both Aad

and Ab

would be similarlyaffected by the different incongruent conditions. The find-ings between A

adand A

bwere largely consistent but with

one exception. The unexpectedNONHUMOR

-relevant condi-tion produced more favorable A

ad but not A

b over the

expected-relevant condition. We defer possible explana-

tions until the general discussion section.The hypotheses regarding cognitive responses received

mixed support. One possible explanation may be in thecognitive response measures obtained. Although collectingonly the volume of cognitive responses from subjects hasbeen the most popular approach (e.g., Brucks, Armstrong,and Goldberg 1988), this does not capture the weight of thegenerated thoughts. For instance, a thought like this isstupid is more unfavorable than I dont understand thead. Thus, we obtained weighted responses from subjectsfor each of their written thoughts in study 2.

Extensions

The findings from study 1 and Heckler and Childers(1992) suggest that information incongruency tends to af-fect memory and attitude measures of advertising effective-ness differently. Particularly noteworthy is that while unex-pected-irrelevant information was found to be memorable,ads with such information tend to be unfavorably evaluated.Considering this, one interesting extension of study 1 is toexamine the effects of information incongruency on recalland evaluative responses after a significant delay from theinitial ad exposure. In doing so, the interplay of memory andattitude effects can be further examined, providing a richer

understanding of incongruency on advertising effectiveness.Specifically, will the pattern of hypotheses shown in Figure1 be different after a delay? And if so, in what ways doesmemory affect attitude under the different conditions ofincongruency?

Accordingly, study 2 was set up to achieve three pur-poses: (1) to replicate the recall results of Heckler andChilders (1992)the immediate recall following ad expo-sure; (2) to replicate the results of study 1the immediateevaluative responses following ad exposure; and (3) moreimportant, to extend (1) and (2) by measuring recall andevaluations after a significant time delay.

4For positive ad and brand thoughts, no significant differences werefound between the unexpectedHUMOR-relevant and unexpectedNONHUMOR-relevant conditions (ad .68 vs. .45, F(1, 114) 2.68; p .1 ; brand .30 vs. .38,F(1, 114) .83,p .1), and between the unexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant and unexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant conditions (ad .28 vs..00, F(1, 114) 3.88, p .05; brand .08 vs. .03, F(1, 114) .29,

p .5). For negative ad and brand thoughts, significant differenceswere found between the unexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant and unex-pectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant conditions (ad .30 vs. 1.00, F(1, 114) 19.73, p .01; brand .20 vs. .39, F(1, 114) 3.45, p .06). Incontrast, the unexpectedHUMOR-relevant and unexpectedNONHUMOR-rele-vant conditions produced similar numbers of negative ad thoughts (ad .23 vs. .24,F(1, 114) .01,p .5) and negative brand thoughts (brand .10 vs. .07, F(1, 114) .08, p .5).



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STUDY 2: DELAYED EFFECTS OF

INFORMATION INCONGRUENCY

Effects of Unexpectancy (Relevant) on DelayedAttitude Formation

Memory issues enter when dealing with delayed ad re-sponses. Hutchinson and Moore (1984) proposed that theamount of elaborative processing toward ad informationaffects the strength of the respective memory trace and,consequently, its retrievability. Thus, conditions where adsreceive more elaborative effort may develop stronger mem-ory traces and a more enduring effect on evaluations. Inother words, effects on evaluations may be relatively moreenduring under unexpected than expected conditions.

Under the expected conditions, memory for the advertise-ment should be minimal after a delay. As such, there shouldbe few ad and brand cognitions available for attitudinal

evaluations. In contrast, unexpected-relevant information ismore memorable than expected information (Heckler andChilders 1992). Hence, the immediate evaluative advantageof such information found in study 1 may also hold after adelay. If the unexpected-relevant information is retrievableafter a delay, it is likely that the information would serve asinput for delayed evaluation. Thus, comparing across incon-gruency conditions, we suggest the following:

H7: At a delay, the significant ad and brand attitudedifferences found between the expected-relevantand expected-irrelevant conditions should dissi-pate.

H8: At a delay, the significant ad and brand attitudedifferences found between the unexpected-rele-vant and expected-relevant conditions should re-main.

Effects of Humor on Delayed AttitudeFormation

Study 1 found that humor produces a significant increasein A

ad and A

bunder the unexpected-irrelevant condition.

However, several studies suggest that humor effects arelikely to dissipate after a delay. Chattopadhyay and Nedun-

gadi (1992) found that immediately after ad exposure, hu-morous ads elicit more favorable ad and brand attitudes thannonhumorous ads. However, at a delay, both forms of adsproduce similar ad and brand attitudes. In addition, assum-ing humor puts people into a positive mood, mood studieshave shown that the effects of any given mood dissipateover time (Schellenberg and Blevins 1973). Based on theabove discussion, we suggest the following:

H9: At a delay, ads with humor information shouldproduce similar levels of ad and brand attitudes asdo ads with nonhumor information.

Effects of Unexpectancy (Irrelevant) on DelayedAttitude Formation

Although unexpected-irrelevant information elicits highrecall, it produces unfavorable attitude evaluations. A

straightforward proposition would be that ads with suchinformation will be unfavorably evaluated at a delay as well.However, the familiarity effect suggests that persuasivemessages that fail to produce immediate favorable re-sponses may be effective after a delay.

Familiarity Effects. The unconscious influence of fa-miliarity has been used to account for the mere exposure,sleeper, and truth effects (Begg, Anas, and Farinacci 1992;Jacoby et al. 1989). Using a similar concept of brand fa-miliarity, Moore and Hutchinson (1983, 1985) advanced asleeper-like hypothesis regarding the effects of affectivelyextreme ads on immediate and delayed brand attitude. Theyrefer to affectively extreme ads as ads that produce very

favorable or very unfavorable attitudes. They posit thatwhile negative valenced ads would produce unfavorablebrand attitudes in immediate measures compared to neutralor positive valenced ads, the unfavorable dispositions wouldimprove after a significant delay.

Central to this formulation is the notion that affectivelyextreme ads create higher brand awareness and that brandattitude is increasingly a function of brand awareness vis-a-vis other attitudinal reactions over time. The empiricalevidence from Moore and Hutchinson (1983, 1985) sup-ports this J-shaped curve where brand attitude change is afunction of ad affect. However, they qualified their findingsby limitations in the experimental designs. One notableweakness is that affective reactions to the ad stimuli (pos-itive, negative, or neutral) were measured post hoc and notexplicitly manipulated.

There are several factors that argue for and against thelikelihood that ads with unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrelevant

information would be amenable to the sleeper hypothesissuggested by Moore and Hutchinson (1983, 1985). As thefindings from study 1 suggest, unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrel-

evant information tends to produce an unfavorable Ab

(aswell as A

ad) immediately after ad exposure. In addition,

Heckler and Childers (1992) demonstrated that such infor-mation can be memorable. Thus, the likelihood that suchads may enhance brand awareness, or the feeling that onehas seen or heard of a brand before (Moore and Hutchinson

1985, p. 69), is probable.Both the memory and attitudinal effects of ads with

unexpectedNONHUMOR

-irrelevant information tend to sug-gest that such ads may exhibit a J-shaped effect for brandattitude. In addition, there is no reason for the theorizedpremises underlying this familiarity-based sleeper effect tobe localized only to brand attitude. We argue that ad attitudemay be subjected to such influences as well. Just as thefeeling that one has seen or heard of a brand before mayelicit a familiarity effect, so may the feeling that one hasseen or heard of an ad. In light of our experimental design,and the limitations as stated by Moore and Hutchinson



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(1985) about their studies, this research presents an oppor-tunity for manipulating, instead of measuring post hoc,attitude extremity to test the familiarity effect on both adand brand attitude formation.

However, an embedded premise in the J-shaped effect is

that such a phenomenon may be unlikely when specificdetails responsible for the unfavorable evaluations from theprior exposure are retrievable from memory. When theinformation eliciting the incongruity are retrievable after adelay, the unfavorable incongruency effect would poten-tially mitigate any brand familiarity effects that may beoperating. In addition, since the familiarity effect is postu-lated to work for negatively valenced ads, based on the A

ad

and Ab

results from study 1, we test this hypothesis underthe unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrelevant condition. Thus, we

propose the following:

H10a: For ads with unexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevantinformation, ad and brand attitude would be

significantly more favorable at a delay com-pared to immediately after ad exposure.

H10b: However, this effect may be moderated by theretrievability of ad specific information.

METHOD

Expectancy (two levels), relevancy (two levels), humor(two levels), and time of response (two levels) were opera-tionalized as between-subjects variables, while the two setsof ads served as a within-subjects replication factor. Foursets of ads were used in Heckler and Childers (1992) toassess recall effects. In attempting to replicate their recall

results, we try to match their experimental design closely. Inresponse, we added two filler ads, making a total of four adexposures, to assess recall of the two target ads.

Dependent Variables

Cognitive Responses. To better assess the extremity ofeach response, we asked the subjects to rate each of theirthoughts on three-point scales. For favorable thoughts, theyrated 3 for very favorable, 2 for moderately favorable,and 1 for slightly favorable; for unfavorable thoughts,they rated 3 for very unfavorable, 2 for moderatelyunfavorable, and 1 for slightly unfavorable. They ratedneutral thoughts zero. This procedure is similar to those

reported in Calder, Insko, and Yandell (1974).

Attitude Evaluations and Recall. The Aad

and Ab

ques-tions were similar to those used in study 1. For recall,subjects were asked to recall all that they could about theads with a recall sheet that was separated into columns.They were instructed to use a separate column for each adand to complete the protocol in whatever order they wished.For the picture recall, subjects were told they could eitherdraw or provide verbal descriptions of them.

Manipulation Checks. In addition to those used in study1, we included an additional item used by Heckler and

Childers (1992) measuring the degree of understandability.The premise is that the higher the incongruity of the infor-mation, the less understandable it is.

Experimental Procedure

Two hundred and forty undergraduates participated in thestudy, making a cell size of 20 for each of the 12 conditions.The cover story was similar to that of study 1. Both sessionswere experimenter-paced. In the first session, subjects wereexposed to four print ads (two target and two filler ads). Thefirst and third exposures were always the target ads andwere counterbalanced. Subjects in the immediate conditionresponded to questions regarding their A

adand A

bafter each

ad exposure, while subjects in the delayed condition re-sponded to filler questions. Following the four ad exposures,subjects in the delayed condition were thanked and dis-missed. For the immediate condition, a four-minute filler

task was administered to clear short-term memory. This wasfollowed by the recall task, the cognitive response mea-sures, and the manipulation check measures, in that order.Manipulation checks in the first session were included onlyin the immediate condition, not in the delayed condition toprevent the possibility that responding to the manipulationcheck measures in the first session would affect subjectsresponses in the second. In the second session (three daysafter the first session), subjects in the delayed conditionwere asked about their evaluation, recall, and cognitiveresponses in that order.

Coding ProcedureFor picture recall, our goal is to examine the memorabil-

ity of information representing different forms of theme-based incongruencies. In response, each correct mention ofthe picture exemplifying the relationships defined by thedifferent treatments and the targeted ad theme was scored asa hit.5 Two coders independently coded the picture recall(91 percent agreement) as to whether it was successful orunsuccessful. For the cognitive responses, the favorabilityof each written thought was determined using subjects ownratings. Two independent coders further coded the weightedthoughts (94 percent agreement) depending on whether theywere directed toward the ad or toward the brand or as other

thoughts. Disagreements were resolved among the codersand the researchers, and a single score was entered for theanalysis.

5We adopted this strict coding scheme to increase the sensitivity of therecall results. Since pictures in all six conditions include a computer in oneform or another, the mentioning of a computer alone may not represent theeffects of congruity or incongruity evoked by the pictures, but may simplyrepresent a minimal memory trace for the general product class. Coding thepictures representing the different congruent and incongruent conditionsplus the ad theme that provided the necessary contrast to evoke thedifferent form of incongruency as a successful recall would help to mini-mize the effects of other extraneous influences on the coded recall.



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RESULTS

Manipulation Checks

Main effects for ad expectancy, ad relevancy, and adhumor were all statistically significant (p-values .05) forboth computer and monitor picture components.6 For theease of understanding measure, we followed Heckler and

Childers (1992) and summed the means across the two adsand performed ANOVA on the aggregated means. Theresults revealed a significant main expectancy effect (F(1,114) 14.90, p .001) and interaction effect betweenexpectancy and relevancy (F(1, 114) 4.70,p .05). Adscontaining the unexpected-irrelevant pictures were ratedmost difficult to understand (X 8.95), followed by thosein the unexpected-relevant, expected-relevant, and expect-ed-irrelevant conditions, in descending order (X 7.20,6.85, and 6.75, respectively). These results are generallyconsistent with Heckler and Childers (1992), suggestingthat differential cognitive effort was required to process theads representing the different treatment conditions.7

Hypotheses Testing

Similar to study 1, the order of ad presentation wasnonsignificant and dropped from further analysis. TheANOVAs and planned comparisons were performed to ad-dress the hypotheses of both studies. For recall, we followedthe analysis procedure reported in Heckler and Childers(1992) by summing recall across the two ads. Results per-

taining to picture recall, Aad, Ab, and cognitive responsesare presented in that order. Table 2 reports the means andstandard deviations of all the dependent measures.8

Results for Picture Recall. The ANOVA revealed amain effect for expectancy (F(1, 228) 22.50, p .001)and time of response (F(1, 228) 14.97, p .001).Planned comparisons to address the hypotheses tested inHeckler and Childers (1992) revealed that, under immediateresponse, expected-relevant pictures were marginally betterrecalled than expected-irrelevant pictures (X .70 vs. X

6For the computer ads, the ANOVA results were significant for expect-ancy (unexpected 4.1 vs. expected 2.85,F(1, 114) 20.84,p .001),relevancy (relevant 3.78 vs. irrelevant 2.75, F(1, 114) 15.82, p .001), and humor (humor 3.48 vs. nonhumor 1.89, F(1, 114) 31.78, p .001). For the monitor ads, the ANOVA results weresignificant for expectancy (unexpected 4.14 vs. expected 2.93, F(1,114) 21.12,p .001), relevancy (relevant 3.77 vs. irrelevant 2.83,F(1, 114) 13.12, p .001), and humor (humor 3.58 vs. nonhumor 2.26,F(1, 114) 18.31,p .001).

7Two particular contrast tests for this manipulation check are notewor-thy. The means were significantly different between relevant and irrelevantversions of unexpected information (X 8.95 vs. X 7.20, F(1, 114) 9.93,p .01), but not for relevant and irrelevant versions of expectedinformation (X 6.85 vs. X 6.75, F(1, 114) .03, p .5). This

demonstrates that the effect of irrelevancy on processing load is significant

only when the information does not fit well with existing schema structure.We thank a reviewer for this comment.8We also collected brand familiarity measures (only under the delayed

conditions) to assess memory effects. Subjects were asked to rate Howfamiliar are you with each of these brands? on a six-point scale anchoredby not familiar at all and very familiar for a list of 10 brand names(four stimuli brands and six distracter brands). The findings revealed asignificant main expectancy effect (F(1, 228) 20.61,p .001), suggest-ing that brand familiarity was higher in the unexpected conditions (X 2.73) than in the expected conditions (X 1.89). In addition, regressionanalysis revealed that subjects who were more familiar with the brandevaluated Aadand Abmore favorably. Other main effects of relevancy andhumor as well as all interaction effects were insignificant (for humor, X 2.71 for humor and X 2.31 for nonhumor; for relevancy, X 2.45 forrelevant and X 2.44 for irrelevant).

TABLE 2

MEANS AND STANDARD DEVIATIONS FOR STUDY 2

Treatment cells

Attitudes

Recall

Cognitive responses

Aad Ab

Positivead

thoughts

Negativead

thoughts

Positivebrand

thoughts

Negativebrand

thoughtsOthers

thoughts

Immediate:Expected-relevant 3.74 (.82) 3.72 (.86) .70 (.73) .45 (.81) .30 (.61) .35 (.62) .18 (.50) .35 (.48)Expected-irrelevant 3.20 (.82) 3.11 (.74) .30 (.47) .15 (.53) .85 (1.03) .20 (.52) .73 (1.13) .25 (.54)UnexpectedHUMOR-relevant 4.37 (1.00) 3.98 (.77) .85 (.93) 1.05 (1.15) .40 (.96) .70 (.85) .43 (.78) .23 (.48)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-relevant 4.54 (.77) 4.11 (.85) .80 (.89) 1.10 (1.35) .23 (.58) .80 (1.04) .20 (.56) .23 (.42)UnexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant 3.75 (1.09) 3.74 (.84) 1.00 (.79) .45 (1.26) .65 (1.05) .25 (.63) .38 (.90) .25 (.54)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant 2.66 (.83) 2.59 (.89) 1.10 (.91) .10 (.44) 1.43 (1.32) .10 (.30) 1.48 (1.84) .20 (.41)

Delay:Expected-relevant 3.34 (.48) 3.21 (.43) .10 (.31) .58 (.96) .20 (.65) .38 (.81) .13 (.40) .50 (.60)Expected-irrelevant 3.29 (.45) 3.23 (.45) .05 (.22) .23 (.62) 1.00 (1.38) .15 (.43) .45 (.99) .23 (.42)UnexpectedHUMOR-relevant 3.74 (.64) 3.45 (.61) .55 (.76) 1.15 (1.31) .40 (.93) .65 (1.03) .28 (.64) .35 (.58)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-relevant 3.83 (.60) 3.64 (.64) .60 (.75) 1.20 (1.42) .30 (.69) .53 (.85) .28 (.55) .38 (.54)

UnexpectedHUMOR-irrelevant 3.09 (.81) 2.96 (.79) .65 (.75) .43 (.78) .98 (1.46) .18 (.45) .78 (1.19) .28 (.45)UnexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant 3.21 (.75) 3.18 (.76) .55 (.83) .38 (.84) 1.08 (1.51) .18 (.45) .85 (1.41) .33 (.53)

NOTE.The reported means are the means averaged across the two ads; numbers in parentheses represent standard deviations.



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.30, F(1, 228) 2.99, p .08), and unexpectedNONHU-

MOR-irrelevant pictures were better recalled than expected-irrelevant pictures (X 1.10 vs. X .30, F(1, 228) 11.97, p .001). Similar to their findings, unexpected-

NONHUMOR-relevant pictures were not better recalled than

expected-relevant pictures (X

.80 vs. X

.70, F(1, 228) .25,p .5 ). These results are generally consistent withthose of Heckler and Childers (1992).9

We performed further tests that were not addressed inHeckler and Childers (1992). Memory for the humor ver-sions of unexpected-relevant and unexpected-irrelevant pic-tures was similar to their nonhumor counterparts. Unexpect-ed

HUMOR-relevant pictures were not better recalled than

expected-relevant pictures (X .85 vs. X .70, F(1, 228) .42, p .5), while picture recall in the unexpected

HU-

MOR-irrelevant condition was higher than in the expected-irrelevant condition (X 1.00 vs. X .30, F(1, 228) 9.16, p .01).

Under delayed responses, picture recall in the unexpect-

edNONHUMOR-relevant condition was better than in the ex-pected-relevant condition (X .60 vs. X .10, F(1, 228) 4.67, p .05), and there was no difference in picturerecall between the expected-relevant and expected-irrele-vant conditions (X .10 vs. X .05, F(1, 228) .05, p .5). However, the relatively high memorability of unex-pected-irrelevant information remained: the unexpected-

NONHUMOR-irrelevant picture was significantly better re-

called than expected-relevant (X .55 vs. X .10, F(1,228) 3.79, p .05) and expected-irrelevant pictures (X .55 vs. X .05, F(1, 228) 4.67, p .05).

Results for Attitude toward the Ad and Brand. Resultsfor immediate A

adand A

bresponses were similar to those of

study 1. Main relevancy effects were significant for bothAad

and Ab

(relevant 3.92, and irrelevant 3.2,F(1, 228) 56.45, p .001 for A

ad; relevant 3.68, and irrelevant

3.13, F(1, 228) 37.47, p .01 for Ab

). Again, thesemain effects were qualified by expectancy-relevancy inter-actions. In the relevant condition, both A

ad and A

b in the

unexpectedNONHUMOR

-relevant condition were significantlymore favorable than in the expected-relevant condition (A

ad

4.54 vs. 3.74,F(1, 228) 17.58,p .001; Ab 4.11 vs.

3.72,F(1, 228) 4.45,p .05). In the irrelevant condition,the unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrelevant condition produced

significantly less favorable Aad

and Ab

than did the expect-ed-irrelevant condition (A

ad 2.66 vs. 3.20, F(1, 228)

8.01, p .01; Ab 2.59 vs. 3.11, F(1, 228) 7.79, p .01). In addition, the effect of humor was significant forthe unexpected-irrelevant condition (A

ad 3.75 vs. 2.66,

F(1, 228) 32.64,p .001; Ab 3.74 vs. 2.59,F(1, 228)

39.24 p .001) but not for the unexpected-relevantcondition (A

ad 4.37 vs. 4.54,F(1, 228) .84,p .1; A

b

3.98 vs. 4.11, F(1, 228) .51, p .1).Hypotheses 710 dealt with delayed attitude responses.

Hypothesis 7 stated that there would be no differences in

Aad

and Ab

under the expected conditions. The resultssupported this hypothesis. No differences in A

ad and A

b

between the expected-relevant and expected-irrelevant con-ditions were found (A

ad 3.34 vs. 3.29, F(1, 228) .07,

p .5; Ab 3.21 vs. 3.23; F(1, 228) .01, p .5).

In contrast, Hypothesis 8 predicted that Aadand Ab in theunexpectedNONHUMOR

-relevant condition would be signifi-cantly more favorable than in the expected-relevant condition.As posited, the unexpected

NONHUMOR-relevant condition pro-

duced higher Aad

and Ab

than did the expected-relevant con-dition (A

ad 3.83 vs. 3.34, F(1, 228) 6.73, p .05; A

b

3.64 vs. 3.21, F(1, 228) 5.52, p .05).Although humor effect was predicted and found to be

significant under immediate response, Hypothesis 9 sug-gested that the delayed humor effect on A

adand A

bshould

be nonsignificant. A significant humor time of responseinteraction was observed (for A

ad, F(1, 228) 8.69, p

.01; for Ab

, F(1, 228) 15.19, p .001) As hypothe-sized, humor effects on delayed A

adand A

bwere not sig-

nificant (for Aad,F(1, 228) .61,p .1; for Ab,F(1, 228) 2.32, p .1).

Hypothesis 10a proposed that Aad

and Ab

would improveunder the unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrelevant condition over

time. Planned comparisons revealed a significant increasefor both A

ad(X 3.21 vs. X 2.66, F(1, 228) 8.31, p

.01) and Ab

(X 3.18 vs.X 2.59, F(1, 228) 10.03,p .01), supporting Hypothesis 10a.

Hypothesis 10b stated that the sleeper effect observedunder Hypothesis 10a would be moderated by the recall ofad specific information. If both the unexpected-irrelevantinformation and the ad theme can be remembered, theincongruency effects that would be operating may likely

negate any potential sleeper effect. To test this hypothesis,a regression was fitted separately for A

adand A

bfor each set

of ads. The recall data were the same as those used fortesting the picture-recall hypotheses reported earlier. Theresults revealed that the RECALL beta coefficients weresignificant (ps .01) and negative across the four regres-sion analyses (.8, .75, .68, and .81). The negativecoefficients imply that delayed A

adand A

bwere lower for

subjects that were able to recall the picture and the adtheme, suggesting that for these subjects, a sleeper effect onAad

and Ab

was not observed.10

Results for Cognitive Responses. The results supportedall cognitive response hypotheses. More favorable ad and

brand thoughts were produced under relevant than irrelevantconditions (ad .92 vs. .29, F(1, 228) 27.13,p .001;brand .57 vs. .18, F(1, 228) 24.43, p .001), sup-porting Hypothesis 1b and 1d. Unexpected

NONHUMOR-rele-

9The restricted recall range (02) may have reduced the power of ourrecall tests. We thank a reviewer for this observation.

10Examining the means for subjects that could recall the picture and adtheme (RECALL 1), means for Aad and Abwere 2.23 and 2.25 for thecomputer ads, and 2.40 and 2.20 for the monitor ads. In comparison, therespective means for subjects that could not recall the picture and ad theme(RECALL 0) were significantly higher. For these subjects, mean AadandAbwere 3.51 (F(1, 18) 32.32,p .001) and 3.52 (F(1, 18) 23.45, p .001) for the computer ads, and 3.57 (F(1, 18) 15.31, p .01) and3.55 (F(1, 18) 34.41,p .001) for the monitor ads.



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vant information elicited a higher amount of favorablethoughts compared to expected-relevant information forboth the ad and the brand (ad 1.1 vs. .45, F(1, 228) 6.94, p .01; brand .80 vs. .35, F(1, 228) 7.99, p .01), supporting Hypothesis 2b and 2d. Furthermore,

unexpectedNONHUMOR-irrelevant information producedmore unfavorable ad and brand thoughts than did expected-irrelevant information, supporting Hypothesis 3b (X 1.43vs. X .85, F(1, 228) 4.64, p .05) and Hypothesis3d (X 1.48 vs. X .73, F(1, 228) 10.02, p .01).These findings suggest that collecting both thought volumeand weight may be useful when comparing conditions thatmay produce thought responses that are similar in numberbut dissimilar in their evaluative implications.11

DISCUSSION (STUDY 2)

Replication of Study 1 and Heckler andChilderss Recall Findings

Results for Aad

and Ab

between studies 1 and 2 werelargely consistent. Furthermore, the cognitive response find-ings for study 2 provided better support for our hypothesesthan did study 1. Our picture-recall results in the immediatecondition were similar to those of Heckler and Childers(1992), thus replicating their recall findings. Interestingly,both studies suggest that unexpected-irrelevant informationcan be highly memorable. However, the attitude findings ofstudies 1 and 2 suggest that this high memorability maypotentially be a double-edged sword.

Extending Study 1 and Heckler and Childerss

StudyPicture Recall. The pattern of delayed recall findings

generally followed that of the immediate measures from thisstudy and Heckler and Childerss (1992). Particularly note-worthy here is the delayed picture-recall advantage of un-expected

NONHUMOR-relevant information over expected-rel-

evant information that eluded Heckler and Childers (1992).This may suggest that memory decay may be slower forunexpected-relevant than for expected-relevant information.The recall superiority of unexpected-irrelevant informationremained under delayed recall response. Not surprisingly,this delayed memory performance played a role in shapingthe memory-based attitude in the delayed condition.

Ad and Brand Attitude. In line with our predictions,there was no significant difference in delayed A

adand A

b

between the two expected conditions. This is consistentwith the poor delayed recall performance of these twoconditions where memory for the ad and brand informa-

tion is likely to be minimal, thus limiting the effects ofinformation incongruency. In contrast, the unexpected-

NONHUMOR-relevant condition produced more favorable

Aad

and Ab

than the expected conditions at a delay, whichis similar to the immediate response findings. The de-

layed recall results suggest that these effects are primar-ily driven by the relatively superior memory performanceof the two unexpected conditions, which allowed infor-mation incongruency to play a role in enhancing delayedAad

and Ab

.The more interesting results come from the two unex-

pected-irrelevant conditions. First, the significant humoreffect in the unexpected

HUMOR-irrelevant condition for both

Aad

and Ab

under immediate responses dissipated over asignificant time delay, highlighting the fleeting nature ofhumor effect on attitudes. Second, A

adand A

bin the unex-

pectedNONHUMOR

-irrelevant condition improved over a sig-nificant time delay. However, this effect is attenuated whenthe ad components responsible for the unfavorable attitudes

can be recalled.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Theoretical Implications

Across two studies, our findings furnish further supportfor the two-dimensional conceptualization of incongruencyadvocated by Heckler and Childers (1992). Although theyexamined memory measures, we showed that the expectan-cy-relevancy-humor distinction provides useful insights tothe effects of information incongruency on attitude.

Creating incongruity through unexpectedness is effective

on attitude formation only when it is relevant to the main admessage; when it is irrelevant, unexpectancy exacerbatesthe unfavorable attitude effects that irrelevancy brings. Inaddition, results from Heckler and Childers (1992) andstudy 2 suggest that unexpected and irrelevant informationcan be highly memorable. It seems reasonable to expect thead viewer to remember not only the unexpected-irrelevantad information longer but also the unfavorable attitudeevaluation attached to it. However, our findings suggest thatthe reverse may also be true.

The increased cognitive effort in processing such ads mayproduce relatively strong memory traces. Over time, suchmemory traces would become a liability when ad recipientsare able to remember or reconstruct the incongruent char-

acteristics of the ad information, which in turn may producepossible negative reactions toward the ad and/or brand.However, when the exact nature of the incongruent infor-mation cannot be remembered or reconstructed, such mem-ory traces may potentially trigger a familiarity effect that inturn may improve attitude formation.

It is worth noting that the possibility of such memory-based contingencies in advertising delayed effects may bedependent on whether attitude judgments are memory-basedor made on-line (e.g., Fazio 1986). When judgments aremade on-line, incoming information is spontaneously pro-cessed to form a judgment, and this judgment may simply

11When the unweighted raw thoughts count was used instead, the resultsbasically mirrored the cognitive response findings of study 1. For instance,no differences were found between unexpectedNONHUMOR-relevant infor-mation and expected-relevant information for both favorable ad (X .48vs.X .28,F(1, 228) 2.14,p .1) and brand thoughts (X .48 vs. .28, F(1, 228) 3.43,p .05), contrary to Hypothesis 2b and 2d.



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be retrieved during postexposure inquiries. In contrast,when judgments are memory based, appropriate informa-tion from the exposure has to be recalled to form a postex-posure judgment. The resultant judgment is dependent onthe specific information that can be retrieved from memory.

Study 2 was designed to facilitate memory-based rather thanon-line judgments in the delayed condition, thus making theobservation of a sleeper or familiarity effect more probable.It remains an empirical question how the findings reportedhere are affected when attitudes are formed on-line.

We hypothesized that both Aad

and Ab

would be similarlyaffected by the different incongruent conditions. The find-ings in both studies showed that in the relevant condition,unexpected information produced more favorable A

ad than

did expected information. In contrast, evidence for Ab

wasmixed. One possible explanation is that subjects were cau-tious about giving high ratings for A

b in the unexpected-

NONHUMOR-relevant condition (hypothesized to elicit the

most favorable attitude response) solely on the basis of the

information from the advertisement. This unwillingnessmay be attributed to (1) the fact that the products concerned(computer and monitors) are high involvement, high expen-diture products and (2) ad viewers skepticism regarding adinformation credibility (Scott 1994). A visual examinationof means for A

adand A

bacross the conditions supports this

observation in that means for Ab

were generally lower thanfor A

ad. An alternative explanation is given by the elabora-

tion-likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo 1986). Perhapsthe message argument (or the central route to persuasion)plays a more substantive role in A

bthan in A

ad. The unusual

ad-execution style of the pictorial information in unex-pected

NONHUMOR-relevant ads may have failed to produce

superior arguments as compared to expected-relevant infor-mation, which increases A

b. This would also suggest that

the link between Aad

and Ab

may be attenuated by the formof incongruency in advertisement.

Humor in Incongruent Information. Humor increasedattitude evaluations only when it is irrelevant. Consistentwith the literature on mood and feelings (e.g., Batra andStayman 1990), our results suggest that humor may biasnegative cognitive evaluation or production. When irrele-vant, humor reduces the negative thoughts that would oth-erwise be elicited from the irrelevant nature of the informa-tion. However, under relevant conditions, humor did notincrease positive-thought generation, giving little benefit

over a nonhumorous execution. Together, these findingssuggest that ads incorporating humor to create unexpected-irrelevant information may enjoy high memorability whileminimizing unfavorable impression formation.12

The findings also highlight a methodological explana-tion for the conditional effect of humor on attitudes. Wecompared the unexpected

HUMOR-relevant with the unex-

pectedNONHUMOR

-relevant conditions and the unexpect-ed

HUMOR-irrelevant with the unexpected

NONHUMOR-irrel-

evant conditions. However, choosing a different baselinefor the nonhumor condition would lead to a differentconclusion. For instance, in study 2 immediate A

adresults,

if we compare the two humor conditions with the expected-relevant condition, the humor effect would be significant forunexpected

HUMOR-relevant (X 4.37 vs. X 3.74, F(1,

228) 10.73, p .01) but not for unexpectedHUMOR

-irrelevant (X 3.75 vs. X 3.74, F(1, 228) .001, p .5), which is exactly the opposite of our findings. Thus,depending on the nature of the baseline comparison, differ-ent conclusions may be drawn regarding the effects ofhumor on attitudes. In sum, our findings offer another factorto consider regarding when humor would be effective: thenature of incongruency of the ad information.

Managerial Implications

For managers and practitioners, our findings suggest thatincorporating humor affords varying mileage to ads withdifferent incongruent information characteristics. For in-stance, including ad information that is nonhumorous, un-common, and able to push through the main message maygive an equally favorable ad impression as a humorousexecution. In addition, adding humor to ads with highlymemorable unexpected-irrelevant information may be aneffective tactic. Along this vein, future research could ex-amine whether ads with unexpected-irrelevant informationwork better for a well-known company/brand or whethersource credibility or popularity affects the negative attitudeevaluation from such ads. If so, the attention-grabbing ben-

efit of such ads may outweigh their evaluative disadvantage.In this respect, our findings suggest that humorous execu-tion of such information may be one way to reap thisfavorable trade-off.

The dependency of unexpectancy on relevancy of infor-mation regarding attitude evaluation suggests that efforts forpresenting unexpected information may be counterproduc-tive if the target audience fails to see the relevant nature ofthe ads. Even if the advertisers construed them to be rele-vant, the possibility remains that unexpected informationmay backfire on the advertisers.

Finally, two qualifications to our findings are noteworthy.First, our findings are based on ads for two high-involve-ment, technical products. Although the similar results for

both sets of ads tend to lessen the possibility of confoundingexplanations for our findings, further empirical investiga-tions with other kinds of productsfor instance, low-in-volvement convenience goodswould help to address gen-eralizability questions.

Second, our theorizing and operationalization of ad in-formation incongruency is qualified by the specific nature ofincongruency that we investigated. The examination oftheme-based picture information incongruency in print adsrepresents one of several ways to study the multifacetedincongruency construct. Although a formal typology detail-ing the potentially different perspectives is lacking in the

12The findings also suggest that any positive advertising execution (e.g.,music) that may potentially bias negative thought processing could achievea similar trade-off. We thank the associate editor and a reviewer for thiscomment.



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literature, future studies in this area should carefully deter-mine the exact forms, dimensions, and operationalizationsof incongruency before meaningful comparisons and inte-gration of findings are propounded.

[Received August 1996. Revised March 1999. Robert E.Burnkrant served as editor, and Richard F. Yalch servedas associate editor for this article.]

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