Damn dirty ads: the impact of explicit and implicit profanity in advertisements

Though profanity is inherently taboo, it seems to be appearing in more advertisements, but does it help or hurt sales? In three studies, participants were shown mock-up advertisements with varying degrees and instances of profane and non-profane intensifiers and varying spokespeople. Across all studies, only implicit, low-intensity profanity was found to be more persuasive than the non-profane control; additional intensifiers decreased persuasiveness in each condition except the control. Furthermore, spokesperson dress did not influence persuasiveness, but a significant interaction between spokesperson sex and explicitness of the profanity was found. Sense of humor did not impact perceived persuasiveness of ads in Study 2 but was found to increase perceived persuasiveness in Study 3. Findings and implications are discussed.