Majed Fahad Alshaibani^*
*Correspondence: Majed Fahad Alshaibani, Associate Professor, College of Media and Communication, Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Email:

Keywords

Visual Advertising, Humor, Customer Relationships, Attention, Brand Recall, Fast Food Restaurants, KSA

Introduction

Humor is a broad idea consisting of interactive elements between people, generating laughter and amusement (Eisend, 2011). Humor is a tendency to share a joke (Gustafsson, Kihi, & Said, 2016) and occurs through amusement by funny words or actions (Riecken & Hensel, 2012). Humor is a global human practice to avoid boring routine life, and is a part of the culture in societies (actions (Riecken & Hensel, 2012). Humor is a global human practice to avoid boring routine life (MacDonald, Kumar, & Schermer, 2020). From marketing communication perspective, humor is a powerful weapon in competitive markets (Lee & Lim, 2008), and a means of communicating messages, and persuading the public (Elbers, 2013). Humor increases pleasant interest and provides exciting and unforgettable messages for customers (Millati et al., 2023). Humor increases customer attention by providing interesting, entertaining, unexpected, provocative, sudden, and memorable messages (Palikhe, 2019).

Advertising is seen as one of the marketing communication tools that employ humor through television by 11% and 24% respectively (Hatzithomas, Zotos, & Boutsouki, 2011). Studies suggest three techniques underlying humor in visual advertising are arousal-safety, incongruity solution, and humorous disparagement (El-tazy & Dinana, 2018). arousal-safety appears in the avoiding of daily stress and details of the daily routine life of the customer, the incongruity solution is based on enhancing the sense of satisfaction caused by conflicts in experimental practices (Millati et al., 2023), and finally, humorous disparagement comes through pleasure and a sense of superiority over others (Hameed et al., 2020).

Businesses promote customer feelings and create a positive impact on the brand (Baltezarević, 2023). So humorous content became important to attract an audience, encourage the community to interact, and cheerfully share customers with communication messages (Campos, 2017). It also improves buying intention and increases sales (Hoang, 2013). Studies consider humor one of the most important communication tools that creates positive awareness (Riecken & Hensel 2012) and increases brand recognition (Evans et al., 2008), liking the communication message (Usunier & Lee 2013), motivates consumer feelings and emotions (Lin, 2023). It enhances marketing content recall, and customer relationships (Campos, 2017). As a result, studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of integrating humor into advertising in several industries and markets (Chiew et al., 2019).

Despite the above, humor negatively affects the relationships between customers and brands, and creates negative attitudes that reduce buying behavior (Azemi et al., 2020). Non-professional humorous advertisements such as inappropriate or aggressive humor may damage the brand (Baltezarević & Baltezarević, 2020), spread quickly, and become difficult to control and stop (Béal & Grégoire, 2021). Humor may seem acceptable to one but is not for others (Laroche et al. 2014). The level of customer perception of humor in advertising is influenced by their culture (Crawford & Gregory,2015). Unfortunately, global experiences have shown poor humor-based communication, due to misunderstandings of communication messages (Chiew, Mathies & Patterson,2019). It found the negative effect of humor, especially when commercials provoke negative emotional reactions in customers (Béal & Grégoire, 2021). Therefore, humorous advertising communications need attention to show the possibilities, limitations, and efficiency of humor, and how to apply it (Järvinen, 2013). From this point of view, the effectiveness of humor is uncertain due to the lack of studies, and the knowledge of researchers and businesses is limited (Caleb & McGraw, 2016). Thus, generalizing the relationship between humor in TV advertising and consumer behavior is ambiguous, and further studies are needed to prove its effectiveness (Hisham,AlSayed, & Saad,2021).

Literature Review

Visual Humor Advertising

Humor in advertising is a part of marketing improvisation strategy for businesses (Al Khasawneh et al., 2023). Customer needs are classified in the context of surprise, urgency, and expectation (Thannikkottu et al.,2023). Marketers meet such needs and desires, diagnose and respond to sales cases innovatively based on humor and fun (Rauwers et al., 2018). We add that when facing sudden and urgent situations, solving customer problems requires instant unplanned solutions (Al Khasawneh et al.,2023). Provide a sense of confidence and reassurance about the solutions offered and ensure that they are absorbed by the public, noting that traditional solutions are no longer acceptable in such circumstances (Borah et al., 2020).

Humor reduces stress (feelings of well-being) (Bergeron & Vachon, 2008), and positively impacts physical and psychological well-being and feelings (Vuorela, 2005). Humor increases the level of trust and feeling, reduces concern about purchasing risks, and reinforces the buying intention, ultimately motivating impulsive purchase decisions from the retailer (Bergeron & Vachon,2008). Humor as a marketing communication tool enhances satisfaction (Vuorela, 2005). From a psychological perspective, humor assists in connecting customers with the business through good feelings and emotional bonds and creates a distinctive market position (Bergeron & Vachon, 2008).

The humorous communication improves product prices and attracts positive attitudes toward the brand such as awareness, buying intention, trust (Wijewardena, Härtel, & Samaratunge,2017), and brand acceptance (Ciuchta et al., 2021). The above affects brand reputation, value, and employee satisfaction (Borah, 2020). Positive interactions between humorous communication messages attract the interest of customers and shareholders (Abdul Majeed, 2020). It improved revenue, profits, sales, and positive WOM (Ashok et al., 2018). it can motivate other customers also towards the products and motivate exports (Djambaska et al., 2016). In some cases, the mentioned factors increase advertising spending as a sign to investors about the business brand efficiency and market position (Joshi & Hanssens, 2010).

On the other hand, bad humorous advertising messages for the public according to cultural norms, and eWOM have a strong influence on the brand image (Khandeparkar & Abhishek, 2017). It also raises negative feelings of the public (Reichstein & Brusch, 2019). Often, negative marketing content becomes viral, spreads rapidly and dramatically in the digital environment, and is reposted by users of social media platforms (Cheung et al., 2019). The use of humor in advertising provokes negative feedback from customers about the brand and stimulates advertising Irritation (Djambaska, Petrovska,& Bundaleska,2016).It appears in several manifestations, most notably: discomfort with advertising, negative impact on perceived brand, and damage to buying behavior (Newton et al., 2016). Advertising irritation affects the transmission of the intended advertising message (Chan, 2011) and attitudes toward the brand (Zaki, Kamarulzaman, & Mohtar, 2020).

The VHA and Customer Relationships

Humorous advertising commands viewer attention, because of its ability to reduce the confusion of attracting attention (Primanto & Dharmmesta,2019).Theories explain that humorous advertising associated with a customer's interest is based on several non-humorous metrics: primary attention, constant attention, anticipated attention, and general interest (Hoang, 2013). It found that humorous advertising outweighs non-humorous advertising in measures of general interest (Chang & Chang, 2014). As previously shown, implementing humor is based on the use of contradiction (Baltezarević, Baltezarević & Radoslav, 2023). The initial response may be a simple recognition of contradiction. After resolving the ambiguity in the meaning of humor, customers generate a response through laughter and amusement (Hameed et al., 2020).

The above is explicitly regarded as one of the goals of marketers when using visual humorous advertising in target markets (Hoang, 2013). Humor reduces the customer contact gap and the level of resistance to advertising messages (Romell & Segedi, 2022; Gulas et al. 2006). The customer may compose negative beliefs; justifying his resistance to the brand or its products, and not accepting any information about it (Hughes et al., 2020), so humorous advertising reduces those negative beliefs, and laughter replaces the standards of brand judgment (Romell & Segedi, 2022; Weinberger & Gulas, 1992).

Most viral ads are humorous and have the advantage of being in consumer memory for a long time impressively (Mamidi, 2018). Studies have shown that there are 29,000 participants in 58 countries, who say that humorous advertising is more resonant (Dynel, 2009). Humorous TV ads also dominated Superbowl ads, as well as football. However, there are mixed results about the impact of humor on brand recall (Shimp 2010). Fugate (1998) also agreed with several other studies that humor advertising attracts attention, promotes recall of the advertising message, and humor shows that we are human beings, as well as improving the brand image (Hoang, 2013).

Weinberger and Gulas (1992) say that humor does not ensure the success of advertising, but instead directly links to the product will give effective outcomes (Fatt, 2002). We add that humorous advertising is appropriate and effective in some cases, and humor effectiveness varies according to demographic groups and individual cultures (Hoang, 2013). Humorous advertising has been more effective in the positive and high ratings of advertised brands (Shimp, 2010). There is a recognized influence among specialists that humor attracts attention and affects customer attitudes positively.Shimp (2010) suggests that there is a series of influences that create brand awareness including humor to attract advertising attention, increase recall of messages in advertising, promote admiration for advertising and advertised brand, and activate memory and understanding brand (Hoang,2013).Humorous advertising affects existing rather than new products and is better for products most associated with feeling or experience, and low cost (Gulas et al. 2006).

Studies have shown that 94% of advertising practitioners see humor as an effective way to attract customer attention. Furthermore, 55% of humorous advertising research executives are believed to outperform non-humorous advertising by attracting attention (Donald & Hinson, 2022). In general, the past 20 years of research largely support the conclusion of the mentioned studies (Lin, 2023) that humor based on product and brand is more successful, and ultimately the results of the experimental studies confirmed the positive impact on attention (Lin, 2023). After an expanded presentation of the theoretical framework and previous studies, the hypotheses could be formulated.

The main hypothesis: There is a positive impact of visual humorous advertising on the customer relationships of Saudi fast food restaurants at the level of a significant 5%. There are two sub-hypotheses:

1. There is a positive impact of visual humorous advertising on attracting the customers' attention of Saudi fast food restaurants.
2. There is a positive impact of visual humorous advertising on brand recall of Saudi fast food restaurants.

The Second hypothesis: There is a statistical differences in customer relationships of Saudi fast food restaurants according to age, education, sex at the level of a significant 5%.

Research Methodology

Research Population: It consists of all customers of fast-food restaurants in Saudi Arabia, these restaurants deal with a wide part of the Saudi people. The results of the exploratory study showed that 95% of Riyadh's population is over 18 and they are customers of fast-food restaurants. Riyadh's population reached 10.5 million in 2023 (Department of Statistics, 2023). Because there is no detailed and precise information about customers of fast food restaurants, and for more accuracy in defining the research population, the research focuses on the customers over 18, who are supposed to have the purchasing power to buy and choose between local fast food restaurant brands.

Sample Research: The study relied on the purposive method. This method chooses the suitable person for the research criteria and objectives. It is a way to choose and easily access the target segment. The purposive sample is classified as one of the non-probability samples. Non-probable samples explain the inability and lack of information about the population. There are no precise details about the names, attributes, and addresses of all persons. The appropriate sample size is 500 customers. The unit of analysis is a Saudi customer of fast food restaurants for over 18 years and living in Riyadh.

Research Tool: The research tool was adopted via Google Drive according to previous studies related to the current study. A group of specialists and academicians reviewed the research tool and items "preliminary questionnaire" to check the level of external validity and the research objectives. The final version of the questionnaire was distributed electronically to respondents, and all questionnaires were recovered and used in the final statistical analysis.

Measurement: The five-point Likert scale was adopted. There are two latent variables in the current study. IV represents visual humorous advertising, and DV explains customer relationships with two sub-dependent variables: customer attention and brand recall. The response levels start from (1) to (5). It reflected the degree of compatibility between the item and the opinion. The (5) level means a very high response, while (1) very low response. Descriptive analysis statistics as arithmetic mean, standard deviation, and relative percent used for IV and DV. Data analysis using the Structural Equation Modelling SEM by Smart PLS software. This technique is based on several statistical indicators to test the research hypothesis. The statistical significance P-value can explain the directional relationship between the latent variables. Standard Beta shows the strength and direction of the relationship between latent variables. The impact coefficient f2 and the coefficient of determination R2 measure the strength and power of IV to express the DV. Q2 predicts the future behavior of the latent variables. Finally, the GoF evaluates the performance of the regression model.

Data analysis

Visual Humor Advertising IV (VHA): It consists of 5 items. The results show 4 items in a moderated level and one in a low level of response. The arithmetic mean of the IV (2.75) with standard deviation (1.3). This means that IV (Visual Humor Advertising in Saudi fast-food restaurants) is moderated according to approval by 28.7% of respondents.

Customer Relationships DV (CR): consists of 9 items explaining two sub-variables: customer attention and brand recall. The arithmetic mean of the DV (2.75) with standard deviation (1.3). This means that DV (Customer relations with Saudi fast-food restaurants) is moderated according to approval by 38.8% of respondents. The sub-variables are as follows:

Customer Attention DV1: It consists of 4 items. The arithmetic mean (3.0032) with standard deviation (1.33). This means that customer attention to Saudi fast-food restaurants is moderated according to approval by 39.4% of respondents.

Brand Recall DV2: It consists of 5 items. The arithmetic means is (2.988) with a standard deviation (1.34). This means that the level of brand recall of the Saudi fast-food restaurant is moderate, according to approval by 38.4% of respondents.

Validity and Reliability

Discriminate Validity: It is the degree to which items differ in the scale and measures the level of interference and correlation between the constructs (Hair et al., 2016). The cross-loading test indicates the value of each item in the latent variable which should be more than other variables (Fornell & Lacker, 1981).Table 1 shows that the cross-loading of each item in the variable is different and higher than values in other latent variables in the matrix. This means there is no correlation between those items in other variables, so those items are distinctive, and the current place is the best (Table 1).

Convergent Validity: It is the degree of agreement between several items to measure the same concept (Hair et al., 2010). It consists of three sub-tests of the construct scale:

Individual Item Validity: It measures consistency between several items in the same latent variable. It is the agreement among respondents on one answer, so each item must be linked with other items in the scale. The statistical rule says that the acceptable value of the test is more than 0.7. Table 2 shows that all items have values above the permitted value (0.7) and therefore statistically accepted.

Composite Reliability CR: The statistical rule decides the acceptance of the latent variable (IV & DV) more than (0.7). Table 2 shows that the IV and DV fulfill the requirements of the statistical evaluation (Hair et al, 2016).

Average Variety Extracted AVC: The statistical rule decides that the minimum test value is 0.5. Table (6) shows that all research variables are above the permitted value (0.5), therefore achieving the requirements of the statistical rule and used to test the research hypotheses (Henseler, Ringle & Sinkovics, 2009) (Table 2).

Findings and Discussion

The main hypothesis is that there is a positive impact of visual humor advertising on customers' attention toward Saudi fast-food restaurants at the 1% significance level. Table 3 shows the statistical analysis of the structural equation method of SEM. Path analysis is part of the regression model and can produce the correlation matrix. The path model may appear through a square and arrow showing the causal relationship between the two variables. The statistical indicators that assess the model fit through Standard Beta and t-Statistics (Henseler et al., 2015). The statistical rule decides that the P-value below 0.01 (Probability of Errors) is statistically accepted. Thus, there is a directional relationship between the two variables in the supposed relationship. The statistical rule shows that the Standard Beta measures the directional relationship, and a negative sign (-) means an inverse relationship between variables.

According to Bootstrapping results repeated 500 times, the P-value is used to accept or reject a directional relationship between IV and DV in the structural model. The statistical rule says that a lower P-value than 0.01 (Probability of errors) means that a directional relationship between the two variables is accepted (Hair, Hult, Ringle, Sarstedt, 2015). The smart PLS Algorithm results repeated 500 times in Table (3) have shown that all P-values of IV and DV are less than 5%. This means that the directional statistical relationship between the IV and DV is accepted. The correlation between the latent variables was positive according to the Standard Beta. The relationship between visual humor advertising and customer relationships with Saudi fast-food restaurants was very strong (Attracting attention = 0.603, Brand Recall = 0.632). The relationship between visual humor advertising and brand recall was the strongest in the structural model. The correlation between VHA and Customer relationships is very high according to the standard beta (0.632). All accepted relationships in the model at Significant P0 < 0.01.

Table 3 shows that visual humor advertising has a high power to explain sub-DV's (Attracting Attention, Brand Recall). The impact factor f2 measures the power of IV to explain DV. The statistical rule says that the f2 between 0.02 and 0.15 means weak impact, and the value between 0.15 and 0.35 means moderated impact, whereas a value above 0.35 expresses a high effect (Henseler et al., 2009). Thus, the impact power of visual humor advertising on components of customer relationships is high (Attention Attraction = 0.572, Brand Recall = 0.647). The impact power of the visual humor advertising on customer relationships was also high (f2 = 0.665). According to the above, the hypothesis says visual humor advertising highly impacted on the customer relationships of Saudi fast-food restaurants accepted at the statistical significance 0.01.

According to the above, the current study outcome is consistent with previous studies that confirmed the power of visual humor advertising on several types of attention: primary attention, constant attention, expected attention, and general attention (Hoang, 2013). The Ivana study (2023) also stated that innovative companies recognize the importance of integrating humor with marketing communications to decrease the space between brands and customers. In this strategy, emotional communication integrates with customer relationships to stimulate consumer feelings. Based on humor, the company can promote brand awareness by creating creative and funny viral communications and sharing them with customers. (Hameed et al., 2020). The study by El-Tazy & Dinana (2018) showed that humor in advertising has a positive and powerful impact on consumer attitude and indirect buying, and WOM played a role in this relationship.

From a micro level, a study by Lin (2023) found a set of general effects of humor on advertising: the number of likes, comments, and shares. It concludes that humor marketing has a higher impact via social media platforms. A study by Eisend (2021) added that humor increases the persuasive effect of advertising in two‐sided Advertising and reduces customer involvement because of the negative distraction effect. The high compatibility between product and humor increases the level of persuasion of humor advertising. On the other hand, the study (Romell & Segedi, 2022) showed that consumers highly appreciate brands that use humor and search for humor content on social media for many purposes: pre-brand assessment, expectation, authenticity, relativity and personality, severity and malicious intent, relevance, and quality of joke. Humor advertising is also risky because the failure of humor hurts the brand, motivates negative feelings among consumers, and causes advertising avoidance (Warren, 2016 & MCGraw). A study (Mehmood & Masood,2016) found that humor in advertising impacts buying intention and improves customer relationships, and the positive correlation between buying intentions and perceived humor was confirmed (Hameed, Babar-Khan & Shahab, 2020). The study (Mcleod et al., 2022) also showed that humor advertising positively impacted brand recall, buying intention, and attitude toward advertising and brand.

In 2023, the study of Millati et al. rejected the positive correlation between customer relationships, buying intentions, and humor in advertising. The literature says that humor context in visual advertising enhances brand recall and the attitude towards the brand. Interestingly, the study (Chan & Lowe, 2018) showed that humor context reduces customer engagement and creates a negative impact on attitude towards the brand. In 2013, Luciana's study showed that misinformation in humor advertising had inversely affected municipal elections in Brazil as a type of corruption because it negatively affected the public's attention to the advertising message. Thus, humor in advertising has reduced the space for communication between customers and avoiding (resistance) the advertising messages (Romell & Segedi, 2022). These behaviors prompted the customer to form negative beliefs about the brand and replaced the criteria for brand evaluation and building customer relationships (Romell & Segedi, 2022).

The coefficient of determination R2 measures the power of IV to explain the DV (Hair et al., 2016). The statistical rule says that values under 0.12 mean poor power to explain the variation, while a value between 0.12 - 0.26 means moderate power, while a value above 0.26 shows high power (Hair et al., 2015). According to Table 2, the results show that visual humor advertising has a high power to explain the variation in customers' attention (0.464) and brand recall (0.393). The study also showed a high power of VHA on the customer relationships of Saudi fast-food restaurants (0.399). These results confirm the power of the regression model in predicting the behavior IV and DV in the future, so the statistical rule says that the Q2 above 0.00 means a predictive power of the model (Hair et al., 2015). Table 3 shows that Q2 is above 0.00 for all sub-variables of VHA, so there is a high predictive ability of customer relationships - and its components - in Saudi fast food restaurants by VHA. Finally, the goodness of fit GOF measures the quality of the structural model (Henseler et al., 2009). The statistical rule says that the GOF above 0.36 shows a high level of appropriateness in the regression model (Hair et al., 2015). Based on the results of GoF in Table (3), the regression model is highly fit for research variables in this study (Table 3).

Significant at P0* < 0.01. Significant at P0** < 0.05.

On the other hand, to test the second hypothesis related to statistical differences in customer relationships by age, sex, education, and experience, path analysis in the Smart PLS4 structural equation method was used, and the demographic employed as Moderators in the relationship between variables in the research model. The P-value determines the level of differences in the customers' relationships. The statistical rule decides that a p-value above 0.01 means the statistical differences are accepted. The test results in Table 4 show no statistical differences in the customer relationships according to the demographic (Table 4).

Significant at P0* < 0.01. Significant at P0** < 0.05.

Conclusion

Humor in marketing communications exceeds all cultural, ethnic, age, and demographic boundaries. The power of humor depends on the level of perception as a weapon to face customers. When advertising makes people happy, it stimulates their ability to understand the communication message, and they become more open to understanding advertising. Humor is an accurate marketing tool with high care and interest. Previous studies supported humor's role in stimulating customer feelings and promoting and developing customer relationships more confidently and firmly. Humor is a way to recognize the brand, encourage buying decisions, build the brand image, and raise awareness. Thus, the humor in visual advertising was a cornerstone of the customer's engagement and linking with new products. Previous studies have confirmed the current study objectives, in that humor in visual advertising has a role in attracting the customer's attention, brand recall, product and advertising, and enhancing the customer's brand penchant.

Other studies have shown a lesser role for humor in many cases. It is a caused a weak repurchase and changed the consumer's mind towards a particular product, promoting attention towards non-humorous advertising. The influence of humor in communication strategies has doubled after being integrated into social media platforms. Humor has become a key tool in the digital community, and content has been intelligently developed and tailored to customers' tastes, although it has also spread abusive links through social media. It is necessary to put humor in visual advertising within the cultural context of society. The communication message may become vibrant and dull, avoiding misunderstanding the content. Therefore, integrating humor into communication and marketing strategies may be vulnerable, especially if there is no consistency between the product and the subject of humor. Some customers may view humor as inappropriate, insignificant, and degrading, and a personality that causes brand avoidance. Humor also fails if unknown audiences and the lack of customer experience realize the level of humor in visual advertising.

Future research

Other researchers can study the impact of different types of humor on the communication message. Study any level and kind of humor used in visual advertising in Saudi Arabia. The inverse effects of humorous advertising may be another topic, drawing the attention of researchers. Linking Saudi public culture with humor content in visual advertising in other sectors is necessary. Checking the impact of humor on brand building may also be a good topic.

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