Abstract

This study examines, through content analysis, the use of humorous advertisements in three countries with quite different cultures, namely China, US and France. The study consists of two stages. Stage one collects roughly 1,000 print ads from each country, extracts those humorous ones, and determines the percentage of humorous ads in each country's sampled ads. Stage two analyzes these humorous ads in detail. It determines the frequencies of various culture-related advertising appeals in each country's humorous ads, and compares these frequencies across the three countries. Stage one confirms that the frequency of humorous ads greatly differs across countries, with US significantly higher than France and China. Through the comparisons with previous studies' findings, it demonstrates that US advertisers' tendency to employ humor is increasing, while that of their French counterparts' is decreasing. Also, as is expected, Chinese advertisers use significantly less humor in their advertisements. Stage two shows that the three countries' differences in the use of various advertising appeals are in accordance with their cultural differences in terms of Hofstede's cultural dimensions: the advertising appeals consistent with a country's cultural values are more prevalent in that country than in the other countries. Since prevalence is deemed to be an indicator of effectiveness, this study demonstrates to the advertising researchers and practitioners the importance of appeal - culture congruence. This study also clarifies some methodological issues in cross-cultural advertising research, and provides guidelines to cross-cultural advertising practitioners.