Joy is a powerful emotion and can play a major role in who—and what—a person chooses to surround themselves with. For marketers hoping to persuade their audience to make a purchase or identify with a ...

Old Spice. Taco Bell. E-Trade. Blendtec. Budweiser. Some of the most memorable advertising campaigns in recent history, regardless of company size and marketing budget, and whether broadcast, print or ...

When asked to write a TV commercial for a car, Jeremy Clarkson, the presenter of the car show Top Gear, started the job with a complaint: “It’s a pretty car, but what they’ve done is put the engine ...

Over the years, there has been no shortage of discourse on the role of humor in advertising, with industry legends and self-proclaimed funnymen alike frequently rhapsodizing about its importance. In ...

Southwest Airlines often resorts to funny advertising to tweak the nose sections of its rivals. The Dallas-based carrier's latest ad campaign headbuts the competition by asking, "What have they been ...

Paul Hornung. Whitey Ford. Tom Heinsohn. Sports fans of a certain vintage will recognize those names as stars of football, baseball and basketball, respectively, from the 1950s and 1960s. Their ...

Advertisers that primarily limited their messages to somber or patriotic themes immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are having some fun again. Sight gags, word games and other clever ...

Certain health issues such as mental illness and sexually transmitted infections evoke feelings of shame, which typically causes withdrawal coping, making it challenging for campaign planners to ...

(By Lisa Orkin) There has never been a better time for humor in advertising. I know what you’re thinking…we’re in the middle of a pandemic, the economy’s tanking. Exactly. Listeners need an escape ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...