Humor in Online Brand-to-Brand Dialogues: Unveiling the Difference Between Top Dog and Underdog Brands

Many brands periodically respond humorously to the content that other brands and celebrities post on social media. Drawing on three scenario-based experiments and a content analysis of humorous X posts based on their likes and reposts, the authors use the benign violation theory to understand whether using humor constitutes a benign (i.e., translating into amusement) or malign (i.e., translating into ulterior motives) violation. The success of a humorous brand-to-brand interaction (i.e., brand attitudes and purchase intentions) depends on its ability to generate amusement without causing customers to suspect ulterior motives. Study 1's results reveal that customers respond more favorably when brands use affiliative humor rather than aggressive humor. Affiliative humor constitutes a benign violation that generates amusement, while aggressive humor constitutes a malign violation that leads customers to infer that brands have ulterior motives. Study 2 shows that aggressive humor partially compensates for its weaknesses over affiliative humor when brands target competing brands. Studies 3a and 3b reveal a reversed effect depending on brand positioning (top dogs vs. underdogs). While underdog brands should always use affiliative humor, top dog brands could perform better by favoring aggressive humor (i.e., such brands could receive more likes and reposts without lowering customers’ purchase intentions).