Dawn uses cute animals to win awards.

Ok, not really why they won an award. Their recent “wash away” ad campaign featured oil-covered birds and other sea creatures being cleaned to promote a $1 donation per bottle the brand would be making to help cleanup oil spills (watch it here). This was before the current crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, ironically.

They won an award because it was quite a well done ad. It showed how the product worked and tugged at the heart strings as well. According to Ace Metrix, that was a formula for one really effective add. Read more about it at adweek.com. 

So, other than cute animals and a cause almost anyone can get behind (helping the environment), what makes an ad effective? Obviously, the goal of the ad needs to be defined first, but assuming a general goal of “get people to buy/use my product/service,” what gets people to pay attention? What makes them remember the ad? What if they remember it because it was annoying? Is that still effective if people say they hate the ad, but sales increased?