Real and cartoon people

Here's something that I've wondered about for a while: why do some commercials have both real and cartoon people in them? For instance, a woman will be in a clothing store, and then a small cartoon woman will come up to her and talk to her about how great the clothes are, etc. Or a woman will be in a grocery store, and a bunch of cartoon people will surround her, giving her advice about a fabulous bathroom tissue.

It's just a mixture of realities: is the real person the true reality, or are the cartoon people the reality? Why would they put both drawings of people and real people together in a 30-second commercial? Why isn't the real woman wondering what all those cartoon people are doing there? If commercials are supposed to make the viewer identify with the folks in the ad, then how can they think that we are going to accept the existence of cartoon people in a world that otherwise looks like ours? Is all possible humanness thus negated? I think it's strange, and it's a mystery that obviously hasn't been solved because I've seen those weird combos for a number of years, and the questions just keep multiplying.