Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper describes a study conducted in collaboration with a marketing agency and a nonprofit organization (NPO) providing regional sexual health services, which included advice on, and testing for, sexually transmitted infections (STIs). The study investigated the relative effectiveness of different formulations of double entendres on appeal, humor, the likelihood of social media engagement, and intention to seek more information about STIs. Advertisements containing double entendres were significantly more appealing and humorous if: (1) the grammatical formulation did not cue the intended meaning; (2) the double entendre involved a creative metaphorical expression; and (3) the double entendre referred to the middle part of the sexual scenario, referring to action rather than intent or result. Participants’ ratings varied very little according to their age, gender, and education. However, a qualitative investigation of the free-text responses revealed that there was some variation in the types of interpretations that were offered by participants depending on their age, gender, and education. The marketing agency incorporated our findings into their live campaign, which resulted in a notable increase in: (a) website traffic and social media engagement; (b) STI home-testing kits ordered; and (c) STI kits returned for testing, compared with previous campaigns.
Highlights
In 2018, a total of 447,694 cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) were diagnosed in England, which constituted a 5% increase from 2017 (Public Health England, 2018)
In order to fully explore the reasons for the quantitative findings, we present our analyses of the data from the freetext responses
The findings from our study suggested that the advertisements would be more likely to be successful if: (a) they did not have extra words inserted into the original place name, and did not cue the intended meaning too explicitly; (b) they contained a creative metaphorical expression referring to a sex-related activity; and (c) they referred to the middle of the sexual scenario, rather than the beginning or the end
Summary
In 2018, a total of 447,694 cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) were diagnosed in England, which constituted a 5% increase from 2017 (Public Health England, 2018). Infections often go untreated and proliferate (Baylis, Buck, Anderson, Jabbal, & Ross, 2017; Hood & Friedman, 2011). For this reason, public and private health services need to find effective ways to communicate about sexual health and dispel the stigma surrounding it. Humor involves the subversion of an expected script, resulting in a degree of incongruity that needs to be resolved (Attardo, 1997, 2010). It often involves an element of surprise (Eisend, 2018). The use of humor in advertisements has been found to enhance consumer take-up of the messages they seek to convey
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