Retromom, thanks; I wonder if I'll ever have time to get to Omaha... I just finished my workday at 4:00am (yeeks!), sending off a PBX proposal to a potential client.
Sex might sell somewhere, but "warm and fuzzy and cozy" does a good job on me. I wasn't even thinking of the pictures of "the laundry guy" with his shirt off as being particularly captivating; it was the one with him in the blue shirt that got me to see him as cute, probably because he has what looks like (even from 3/4 rear view) an expression on his face that suggests he's *thinking about something interesting,* something to do with a painting he's going to paint or a chapter of a novel he's writing, or something like that. But he's not shown as aloof and unapproachable, he's warm & fuzzy, if that makes any sense.
Also "funny" and "offbeat", and occasionally "mildly tasteless," work for me. Monty Python was the funniest thing in the world as far as I'm concerned, and ads that get even close to that kind of funny will stick in my head. Also aesthetics. Smuckers' had an amazing radio spot probably five or ten years ago that consisted of nothing more than a voice-over talking about a beautiful farm full of grape vines in the sunlight, and then talking about Smucker's grape jam. The descriptions were so vivid that you could see the farm, smell the breeze, smell the grapes, and taste the jam on an imaginary slice of toast. It was a masterpiece of descriptive talent.
What offends me is violence and variations on the "selfish twit with no brains" theme, the latter being especially prevalent today. "Oooh, I just new I had to go out with you because you have a new (brand of car)... can I drive it?" And ads that use the sounds of heart-rate monitors beeping away: hey, don't audio-drive my body rhythms, dammit! And all those mortgage ads and viagra ads on the radio remind me of nothing more than the hundred or so spams I get every day.
Supermarket flyers in the mail go right into the recycle bin. The best advertising any supermarket can do is put a little dish of free samples out at the end of the aisle. A couple of times I've taken a nibble and said, "Okay, you got me this time!" and bought a package or two of whatever it was.