Within an ad, many ways can be used to get the attention of the target audience, including: Humor

Ads for standard products are basically repetitive for name-recognition, so they use many "feel-good" ads (emotional warmth) and humor to break up the monotony.

Humor ads are often used for parity products (items with little or no difference): “They are making use of the peripheral rather than the central route to persuasion,” said Rod A. Martin, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario and the author of “The Psychology of Humor": ” It is “difficult to make a compelling, logical, rational argument for these products’ superiority over their rivals... so advertisers need to evoke positive associations with the product in the minds of the viewers without encouraging them to think too much about it.”

Humor in advertising is usually mellow and light-hearted which provokes a smile or a chuckle rather than a full laugh. Such humor ranges from visual "sight gags" and physical slapstick to witty puns and word play. In ads, the humor is not bitter or sarcastic.

See if this humor (from a Los Angeles, California TV ad) gets your attention and makes you smile.

Humor usually involves something out of place, the unexpected, the incongruous.We laugh at many things simply because they do not make sense logically, they do not follow, or they do not belong.

Self-deprecating humor is sometimes used, but this is a version of the "concessive argument." Volkswagen Beetle ads, for example, often kid their own cars as being "plain" or "ugly" (concede a minor point) because their major selling points are "economy," "efficiency," or "practicality."

Parodies are common in ads. Such humorous "take offs" on well-known storyline patterns, stock situations and clichés (e.g. song-and-dance musicals, westerns, adventure stories, love scenes) attract the attention of an audience which then feels superior, "in the know," and in league with the makers of the clever ad.