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The Price of Laughter: Differences Between Hispanic Groups' Responses to the Use of Humor in Financial Services Advertising
Author(s) -
Villegas Jorge,
Shah Aarambh
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
family and consumer sciences research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 1077-727X
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x08322780
Subject(s) - appeal , mexican americans , advertising , psychology , laughter , product (mathematics) , social psychology , financial services , service (business) , marketing , political science , finance , ethnic group , business , geometry , mathematics , law
This study argues for a more precise study of U.S. Hispanics by investigating the different attitudes toward money retention of two Hispanic groups, Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans, and its impact on advertising processing. The hypothesized dissimilarity, Cuban American have a more positive attitude toward retention than Mexican Americans, was used as the basis for hypotheses that explored the effects of the use of humor in advertising for a financial product. The results of a 2 × 2 experiment in which type of appeal (humorous/non‐humorous) was manipulated and Hispanic group affiliation was measured suggest that Cuban Americans prefer a nonhumorous appeal in an advertisement for a financial service whereas Mexican Americans preferred the humorous message. This finding suggests that Mexican Americans might use affective information, instead of cognitive strategies, to form attitudes toward financial products.