Humorous Appeal: Adding Amusing Messages to Your Sign

Adding humor is a great way to break through the clutter via effective signage, and there are solid reasons why. It is believed to be one of the most powerful tools in gaining attention, engaging consumers and aiding recalls.

Does humor work best for all?

No it doesn’t. As the same rule can’t be applied to all, so can’t humor.

Humor appeal is largely determined by what you are selling. What works best for others, may not work well for you. For example, a company campaigning for breast cancer awareness with a humorous appeal, may negatively influence the sentiments of the people struggling with cancer.

Creating an outstanding sign 

Before leaping onto why it works, here are some of the most commonly used techniques by companies to sell their products.

Comparison: Technique with the involvement of putting two or more components together to develop a humorous appeal. Best to use when the focus is to provide solutions to an existing problem.

Personification: This technique works best when you try to achieve positivity by attributing human characteristics with things to attract youth.

Sarcasm: This technique involves usually promoting embarrassing situations, habits of a person etc to target the core audience. Making them seem funny and enjoyable is the objective.

Silliness: Simply put, silliness refers to a ridiculous situation, incident or occurrence.  Making signs seem silly on purpose to make people laugh is an art of advertising. Highlighting the silliness in advertisements/signs, especially to market luxury or personal use products, is very popular tactic among marketing gurus.

Exaggeration: Exaggeration technique refers to the extension of any given situation in order to focus on one key element. ‘We sell the best’ slogans are made using this technique.

Adding humor to your signs: Benefits

Competitive Advantage Over Others: Adding humor to your signs makes it easily distinguishable from the clutter, with a greater impact. It provides you with the competitive advantage your product needs to sell more.

Source of Instant Entertainment: The most important advantage of humorous signs is that they attract instant attention. This is how it works. Humor triggers your memory to feel something. It enables you to laugh, giggle, or be amused, arousing a response, thus increasing the likelihood of the product to be remembered.

Aids Comprehension: Sometimes adverts are so overly decorated with messages that it becomes difficult to pick out what the product actually wants to deliver. This leads to failed advertising and ultimately a failed product. Humor on the other hand, is simpler to grasp and understand. Humorous signs may increase the likelihood of the consumer to buy your product as it creates a positive vibe and a more personal connection.

Conventional outdoor advertising is losing its spark in today’s world. In order to regain visibility of our business, it is important to come up with innovative ways that are easy to attract and encourages buying decisions of the consumers. Humorous advertising, if done correctly, can reap fruitful trophies for your business.