How to craft humorous advertisements across diverse cultures? Multi-country insights from Brazilian, Chinese and American consumers

In today's multicultural environment, the influence of cultural orientations on humorous advertising outcomes is increasingly significant for researchers and practitioners. Drawing on a theoretical framework from culture dimensions and theories of humour in advertising, this research examines the moderating role of cultural orientation on the relationship between humour styles and consumers' attitudes towards humorous ads. Empirical results from studies conducted in Brazil, China and the United States show that uncertainty avoidance moderates the effect of cognition-evoking humorous ads on consumers' responses to the ads, while individualism-collectivism moderates the effect of affect-evoking humorous ads on these responses. Specifically, consumers from countries with high uncertainty avoidance (e.g., Brazil) have more favourable attitudes towards and perceive greater humour from cognition-evoking humorous ads with closure than those from countries with low uncertainty avoidance (e.g., China, United States). In addition, consumers from collectivist countries (e.g., China, Brazil) have more favourable attitudes towards and perceive greater humour from affect-evoking humorous ads with closure than do those from individualist countries (e.g., United States).