The UK has a tradition for very expensive, sophisiticated advertising campaigns - the prevalence of the BBC means that the British traditionally have low tolerance for advert breaks so they have to be enjoyable and endear themselves to the public. As a result, we don't 'buy in' a huge amount - although I bet the new Apple ones would go down really well here, they are very much in the British quirky/funny advertising tradition, unlike any older apple ads I can think of.
The exceptions tend to be cosmetic/beauty/frozen food type products which, as someone said, often seem to be badly dubbed from German... and Microsoft/IBM business I.T. adverts. I can't believe those Microsoft adverts have ANY effect in the British market, other than retaining brand identity.