About a year ago, one US company selling SUV's was using the tune for "What shall we do with a drunken sailor" in their commercials. Struck me as an odd match between song & product - you want drunken sailors driving SUV's? (Well, here in the US that probably happens all too often...)

Advertising is intended to at least get you to remember the product. And these days, most of it tries to invoke some specific emotional response as well. That emotion may not have any connection with the use of the product, but Ad Executives have decided that triggering emotions is a more effective way to get people to buy something than detailing features/benefits to the consumer and appealing to logic & reason.

Anyway... use of music that is familiar to the audience is one tool of advertisers. For example, I would guess that the "Drunken Sailor" music for the SUV was intended to make the listener feel happy & rebellious (tying in with the current "pirate" fad), and maybe even a bit cruel (assuming the listeners know the lyrics). This is the mindset the advertisers want people in when they think about buying a vehicle. (kinda scary, ain't it?)

As a general rule, it seems that the history of the music (or background setting, or whatever) is of almost no interest to advertisers. They only think about how the music (or whatever) will impact their target audience. And that audience is usually the mindless consumer who has been brainwashed into not thinking critically before buying a product.

So we should not be surprised that advertisers show no "respect for tradition".