The Use of Humour Appeal in Advertisements: A Review Specific to Turkcell

The use of appeal types in modern advertising practices is increasingly widespread. Advertising appeals are used with the aim of directing the target audience's attention to the advertisement, awakening interest, creating desire, and encouraging purchase. Particularly in advertising messages designed with persuasive strategies, rational or emotional appeals are used in line with brand objectives. Humour appeal, one of the types of emotional appeal, creates a positive perception and permanence by ensuring that individuals are entertained while watching the advertisement. The correct use of humour in advertising messages is important for creating a positive effect. Although there are different views in the literature regarding the use of humour appeal in advertisements, humour that is used at appropriate levels and carefully prepared has a quite high probability of success. So much so that in today's mass culture, individuals' tendency to like and watch entertaining content more has directed advertisers' interest towards humour appeals. The present study aims to examine the use of humour appeal in advertisements through indicators. Adopting a qualitative research method, the study analysed a recently released advertisement movie by Turkcell, one of the leading brands in the service sector, using the indicator method. The resulting analysis revealed that the advertisement content heavily includes elements of humour. It was also concluded that the advertisement's humorous effect is reinforced by playing one of our country's loved comedians in the advertisement movie and that the brand has successfully utilised humour.