What is Advertising

In this chapter, the award-winning television commercials of Turkey's Cristal Apple Advertising Competition are studied in terms of their use of humor. The commercials are content analyzed, and humorous devices are organized according to the studies of Sterthal and Craig (1973), Kelly and Solomon (1975), Buijen and Valkenburg (2004), and Yee (2011). The humorous devices are listed according to four distinct product categories—banking, decoration, detergents and household cleaners, and foods—and determined according to four distinct categories designed by Weinberger, Campbell, and Brody (1994). All the award-winning advertisements are analyzed according to humorous devices used and product types comparatively. As a result, it is observed that there are significant differences in terms of humor use in advertisements in different sectors. Accordingly, the most humorous advertisements are in the food sector. The humor devices used in the advertisements differentiate from year to year.