>But if the sale of your product depends not on its quality, or its benefit, and is so influenced by a "gut feeling" and irrational association of your brand to an idea, then what gives? The whole thing devolves into "who can advertise best" instead of "who can build the best thing".

Ding ding ding. Advertising is deception. Arguments otherwise are dancing around the issue. The whole point is to make you do or buy something that you otherwise wouldn't, and the ways they resort to to make you do this are getting ever more insidious.

When you see beer ads, they don't actually advertise beer. Their job is to implant the idea that beer will make you fun, attractive, that without it you're missing out on incredible life experiences. That if you just go out and get some you will leave your drab miserable life behind and dance with a smoking hot girl in a sunset. That all those beautiful, young, fun, attractive people are laughing and having fun and having beer. It's all about manipulating your weak mammal brain to make you buy stuff. It's manipulative and immoral.