Humor in Online Brand-to-brand Dialogues: Unveiling the Difference between Top Dog and Underdog Brands

Mathieu Béal (), Charlotte Lécuyer () and Ivan Guitart ()
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Mathieu Béal: EM - EMLyon Business School
Charlotte Lécuyer: CleRMa - Clermont Recherche Management - ESC Clermont-Ferrand - École Supérieure de Commerce (ESC) - Clermont-Ferrand - UCA - Université Clermont Auvergne
Ivan Guitart: EM - EMLyon Business School

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Abstract: Many brands periodically respond humorously to the content that other brands and celebrities post on social media. Drawing on three scenario-based experiments and a content analysis of humorous tweets based on their likes and retweets, the authors use the benign violation theory to understand whether using humor constitutes a benign (i.e., translating into amusement) or malign (i.e., translating into ulterior motives) violation. The success of a humorous brand-to-brand interaction (i.e., brand attitudes and purchase intentions) depends on its ability to generate amusement without causing customers to suspect ulterior motives. Study 1's results reveal that customers respond more favorably when brands use affiliative humor rather than aggressive humor. Affiliative humor constitutes a benign violation that generates amusement, while aggressive humor constitutes a malign violation that leads customers to infer that brands have ulterior motives. Study 2 shows that aggressive humor partially compensates for its weaknesses over affiliative humor when brands target competing brands. Studies 3A and 3B reveal a reversed effect depending on brand positioning (top dogs versus underdogs). While underdog brands should always use affiliative humor, top dog brands could perform better by favoring aggressive humor (i.e., such brands could receive more likes and retweets without lowering customers' purchase intentions).

Keywords: humor; brand-to-brand dialogues; social media; competitive context; top dog brands; underdog brands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-07-31
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mkt and nep-pay
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Published in Journal of Interactive Marketing, inPress, ⟨10.1177/10949968241266828⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04666015

DOI: 10.1177/10949968241266828

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