Commercials

Advertisement is something that all companies must work on to some degree. Whether they are selling shoes, life insurance, or comic books, producers need to find a way to get their potential buyers aware of their products. With the advent of television, commercials were born.
It seems like commercials have gotten much more tongue-in-cheek lately. Humor is being used to greater amounts than it used to. For instance, an advertisment promoting "safe drinking" used the following joke.

Man: if your friend has been drinking, then ask for his keys.
Drunk man: *refuses to give man his keys*
Man: If he refuses, then ask for his pants.
Drunk man: *removes pants and gives them to Man*
Man: You now have his keys, and his pants!

Where in the past this subject (safe drinking) would probably draw a much more serious style of commercial that focused on statistics and the severity of drunk driving, this newer commercial is approached with levity. I'm sort of curious as to why. Is it because, after so many advertisements bombarding us with slow music and horrible statistics, we just got desensitized? From a personal standpoint, I know that this humorous advertisement was far more memorable, and made a bigger impact on me than any serious one.
I've often thought that the best advertisment of all would be 15 seconds of a black screen, with plain white letters, simply saying "buy X". With all the lavish designs for ad campaigns nowadays, the starkness of such an ad seems like it would put it so far out there as to be very recognizable and memorable. And isnt that the point--to be memorable?