I

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The satiation and euphoric that accompany the successful completion of task would be incomplete without the mention of the people who made it possible. So with immense gratitude I acknowledge all those whose guidance and encouragement crowned my efforts with success. I would like to thank Prof. Sudhir G Angur, President, Alliance Business Academy for providing the support to do this study. I owe my debt of gratitude to my project guide Prof. Prabhakaran who has guided me throughout this project with ample support and helping me to get accomplished the report successfully. I take this opportunity to thank, with deep sense of gratitude, Prof. Smitha V. Shenoy for giving me all the required insights, suggestions and valuable advice in execution of this Dissertation I would like to thank all the faculty members of Alliance Business Academy. I am also grateful to my parents and my friends for their support and motivation for my project. Thanking Everyone. Apeksha J Nayak

II

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

III

The Indian advertising industry is talking business today. It has emerged as one of the major industries and tertiary sectors and has broadened its horizons be it the creative aspect, the capital employed or the number of personnel involved. Indian advertising industry has carved a niche for itself and placed itself on the global map.

Indian advertising industry is estimated at Rs.23, 200-crore. The Indian advertising industry is expected to grow 61% by 2010 with advertising spend climbing to Rs. 36,731 crore. Businesses are looking up to advertising as a tool to cash in on lucrative business opportunities. Growth in business has lead to a consecutive boom in the advertising industry. The Indian advertising handles both national and international projects because the industry offers a host of functions to its clients that include client servicing, media planning, media buying, creative conceptualization, pre and post campaign analysis, market research, marketing, branding, and public relation services.

This study mainly addresses a gap in the extensive scholarly literature on advertising humor by exploring advertisers uses of humor and explanations for its broad appeal as a message over the past few years. An examination of the existing literatures indicate that most of the theories and models are based on the studies conducted using surveys or experiments within set boundaries. There is hardly any literature in advertising which uses real-life campaigns or cases. Not much work has been done in evaluating the use and effect of humor in India. This research aims at addressing these gaps and also aims at providing rich data and knowledge about the use of humor in advertising. The studys sources consist of articles from important advertising and marketing journals, books in the field of humour and a few case studies and examples.

IV

Some of the major findings of the research were that most low-risk, low-involvement and impulse purchase products (yellow goods) are advertised using humour-dominant ads with incongruity being most widely used mechanism in this category and low-risk functional goods are mostly advertised with message-dominant ads. It was also found that in India new products like Bingo and Virgin Mobile extensively used incongruence and absurdism in advertisements to attract the viewers and most yellow products like Mentos and Sprite use humour for market segmentation and to target the younger people. Whereas, Fevicol proved to be an excellent example of how the brands could use humour in ads to maintain their brand image and sales.

From the findings it was concluded that humour played a significant role in Indian advertisements. It is also concluded that advertising in India is used to gain a

competitive advantage in making a strong entry into the market, targeting the right audience and maintaining the competitive edge and brand image. In India the new products are mainly using incongruence and absurdism in advertisements. Unrelated and hilariously funny ads can be used to advertise new low-risk impulse products. It can be said that the brands could also use humour in ads to maintain their brand image and sales.

A clever, imaginative, humorous request can open closed doors and closed minds. Percy Ross (19162001), American columnist and philanthropist