per McGrath, re advertising types:

"They are probably more motivated a lot of the time by the hope of impressing their peers, and winning awards. "

During my long careeer in the now-defunct typography business, I had many dealings with ad agency employees (mostly art directors). The question of whether award-winning ads admired by one's peers in the industry were actually effecive marketing tools was always a topic of discussion.

In the end, these arguments/discussions were usually resolved by admitting that no one in the business could remain successful for long if his/her creations did not effectively sell the product. There might be single instances of award-winning campaigns that failed on a practical level, but designers/creators who regularly won recognition for their artistic achievements were also effective marketers. They wouldn't have kept their jobs for so long if they were not.

Now, the converse is a different question. We would all agree that some lowbrow advertising ridiculed by the artistic elite could be effective enough as a selling tool, sometimes even highly successful, and of course such work is usually inexpensive to boot.

I stand by my opinion that the Paif ad would never fly in the States. Too large a portion of the population is seen as totally ignorant of foreign-language culture at any level. Brits are much more aware of their neighbors across the Channel than are Yanks.