Verified by 
Remember all those silly car ads?
The pages after magazine pages featuring a leggy blonde supine upon the polished curves of the new 1979 whatever-mobile?
Sometimes, the ad has to be reshot.
These ads still appear, of course. Dos Equiz's popular "Most Interesting Man in the World" commercials always end with a shot of the Mr. No Feminine Side seated at a restaurant table and surrounded by three former Miss Some State, perhaps spoofing Hugh Hefner and his one-fourth-Hef's-age entourage.
Many argue that these ads imply a deceptive promise: Buy this product and the hottie comes along free.
But that isn't the creators' intent. These ads use the same device used by advertisers who engage cute babies or puppies to disarm us. Think of E-Trade's wise-cracking, day-trading infant, Chick-Fil-A's cow pleading with us to eat "More Chikin," and Traveler's fretful and insomniac dog who finally deposits his bone in a bank, against the background song "Trouble, trouble's been hounding me. . ."
When we see these commercials, we don't assume the products advertised come with a street-smart infant, a Holstein cow, or a Labradoodle. The ads use those devices to create an emotional association and elevate our mental state. (It's also why many ads use humor and smiling people.) Later when we are exposed to that product, we feel something positive.
We don't know why; we might not even be conscious of the feeling.
But it happens.
Creatives regularly rail against this practice, condemning these ads for relying on "borrowed interest." But what the borrowers really are lifting is an emotional context.
They realize that we buy with our hearts.
This also explains why the only ads that feature cats are ads for cat products. For reasons beyond the scope of this entry, many people—particularly men—don't like cats. (As one piece of evidence: According to Google's Ngram Viewer, books published since 1950 have used the word "dog" 25 times more often than the word "cat.")
Advertisers realize that they cannot easily deliver a message that alters our opinion of a product. But in just 30 seconds, they can leave us with a feeling.
Later, when we are exposed to the product, we revive that feeling. We smile at the Chick-Fil-A sign because the cow make us smile. We smile at the thought of E-Trade—even though we suspect that diaper-clad kid will grow up to be an intolerable wisea--.) We smile at the Travelers' umbrella, because the anxious dog with his bone engaged us from beginning to peaceful end.
We even associate a car with an attractive person, and it becomes more attractive to us.
We buy, time and again, with our feelings.
And so advertisers evoke those feelings, with former pageant winners, cute cows, and Travelers' charming but "troubled" insomniac Labradoodle (named Chopper, incidentally).
See? You're smiling just thinking about him.
