"If Sex Sells, Humour Sells Way More"

That was the title of a new release from Advertising week, discussing a finding from a survey of all Canadians.

The survey asked Canadians what factors they felt were the most persuasive in advertising. It found that 67% of respondents found that humour is "the secret ingredient that makes an advertisement more persuasive," compared to only 7% for the persuasiveness of sex.

You should ignore this survey.

Not because I think sex should be used in all ads or because I'm opposed to humor in advertising, but because the premise of the survey is ridiculous.

For starters, since when does anyone know what makes them tick? One of the most interesting things you learn in psychology studies is that we don't know half as much about ourselves as we think we do. If we did, slapping a logo a product would not dramatically increase its retail value. If we did, there wouldn't be a disparity between the incomes of women and the incomes of men. If we did, politicians kissing babies wouldn't improve their popularity. And yet all of those are realities. We're a silly, silly species.

More to the point though, sex doesn't sell. Nor does humor. Nor cute babies. What they do is they grab your attention, hopefully for long enough that advertisers can convey their message. Jerry Seinfeld didn't convince me to buy Microsoft products, but he did get me to pay attention. Two silly guys pretending to be computers didn't get me to buy a mac, but they, too, got me to pay attention.

What does get people to buy is emotionally and intellectually stimulating arguments. When an advertiser splashes a pair of boobs across the screen, they also have to make the argument for their product. No one buys a new car simply because there was an attractive woman standing beside it. The attractive woman got the buyer to notice the car, though. It's a foot in the door, nothing more.

P.S. At the time of publication, comments are down on this here blog. I hope to have them back up shortly. Comments are back up.

Photo credit: Taken without permission from baseballforum.com