Adverts tend to be the forgotten part of television, the few minutes that allow you to make a brew or have a comfort break. If you do sit through the adverts then you will probably become irritated about the number of times David Tennant turns up trying to sell you things.

This is why adverts that have some character, charm and an adorable mascot are more likely to be remembered. So here are some recent adverts that have gone beyond telling people to buy their thing.

Zingy

The gas company EDF energy introduced the little orange chap into their adverts back in April 2012. So far he has been seen dancing to ‘Together in Electric Dreams’, ‘Take On Me’ and the Hawaii Five-O theme tune all in the name of selling gas.

He is commonly thought of as an orange dancing poo but in fact he is a custom designed robot called Zingy. The company behind him is called BeatBots and they create small and cute robotic characters which are primarily aimed at helping children with conditions like autism.

Zingy has become quite popular, there is even a petition to try and get EDF to work on a toy version of him, and he has inspired a variety of homemade homages.

Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit also teamed up with an energy company, in this case Npower, to help people save money on their energy bills. The adverts showed Wallace’s inventions breaking, Gromit rolling his eyes and making a call to Bob from Npower to help them out. Even though it is only a 30 second advert the Aardman creation still manages to amuse and entertain.

Cravendale

Cravendale, essentially a fancy version of milk, say in their adverts that milk is so tempting that cats were waiting to gain opposable thumbs in order to steal Cravendale from humans. Although a sinister advert it is quite sweet to think that if cats did evolve it would be just to steal our milk.

Specsavers

Specsavers always has imaginative adverts demonstrating the foolish things that can happen if people don’t take their eyesight seriously. Specsavers regularly use well-known children’s characters to tell people to get classes with them. Most recently they have used characters from The Thunderbirds and Mr Men stories, but my personal favourite is Postman Pat.

The advert sees Pat breaks his glasses yet he decides to go on his post round regardless. As a result he ends up driving through Mrs Hubbard’s laundry and trying to post vegetables through Reverend Timms letterbox.

Bird’s Eye

Back in 2010 Birdseye said farewell to Captain Birdseye in favour of a small polar bear. The plush polar bear is named after the founder of Birdseye, Clarence, and is voiced by the actor Willem Dafoe.

Since Clarence started appearing in the frozen food adverts he has made a name for himself and now has his own line of plush toys, key rings and cookbook.