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 ...

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 ...

The always excellent BPS Research Digest recently riffed on new research suggesting that humorous advertising short circuits our brains' built-in BS detector. Funny advertising has a long history, of ...

Humor doesn’t just sell—it sells well, and that’s no joke. There are any number of stats to validate it. Research from Oracle indicates that 90% of consumers are more likely to recall a product 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 ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I cover advertising. Most of it's award-winning. Some has potential. FedEx has a long history of doing breakthrough, funny ...

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 ...

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 ...