Rule 1 of advertisement. If your customer can't understand the message while flicking through a magazine, skimming through webpages or driving past a sign nobody will buy your stuff. Most buy desicions are even made unconciously.
I see a lot of artsy advertisement and packaging from people fresh out of school amd that stuff simply wouldn't fly in the real world.
To some degree. I can't imagine, though, how this is useful: http://imgur.com/a/82c9w :)