"Appealing" isn't the word
As an adcunt, I know about these things. Irritation is a sound way of making a brand name stick. Look at jingly ads like Sheila's Wheels, or Go Compare's opera singer (their reaction to the extremely successful CompareTheMeerkat ads).
Tons of money is spent each year on advertising recall. The type of ads you talk about are clearly failures. The successes are those that are remembered by the people the ad agencies are targeting.
There's an old adage about a CEO who says that he knows 50% of his advertising works, but he doesn't know which 50%.
( FishNChimps Achtung! Spitfeuer!, Wed 21 Oct 2009, 14:17, 3 replies)

Nope
Admiral WORKS. Believe me, I've seen tracking.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Wed 21 Oct 2009, 14:25, closed)

I didn't mean it as a personal attack
re-reading has pointed out that is how it sounds. The way you've put it, it does make sense that even though they annoy me, (the ad's), I can quite clearly recall all of the jingles that I so despise.

Damn you adcunt!
(Feeb is a smooth operator, operating correctly, Wed 21 Oct 2009, 14:26, closed)

McDonalds.
At first, the ads had the "do-do-do do-doooo" whistle followed by someone singing "I'm lovin' it" to a tune that sort of resolves the questioning tone of the whistle.

Then they took the singing away and just left the whistle. Because of the cleverly crafted melody, your brain can't help filling it in by thinking "I'm lovin' it". Good trick, that.

At least it worked until I read an article about McD by Will Self, entitled "I'm leavin' it".
(MiscellaneousFiles, Wed 21 Oct 2009, 14:39, closed)