Treating young people like they are less savvy or reasoned about the decisions is always a mistake. Likewise you can't just treat hundreds of millions of people as thought they are one homogenous hivemind.

I am not sure it is always a mistake. People have made billions of dollars by doing. Look at how sneakers are advertised and sold. On a more sinister note, take a look at the whole Joe Camel cigarette advertising campaign.

Likewise bringing up cigarette is ridiculous since it ignores the fact that they are highly addictive.

To be addictive you need to start, and the cigarette companies knew that if you made it out of your teenage years without smoking, there was almost no chance you would start smoking. All of that marketing worked on teenagers specifically due to peer pressure and desire to fit in/be cool. And it's repeating itself with Juul. Virtually no 20+ year old non-smokers wake up one day and think "I want to start a vaping habit."

There's a reason people buy Supreme.

In another comment you refer to "exclusivity" with fashion. Why, then, is it such a ridiculous proposition that the exclusivity of having a blue text message bubble could have an impact as a status symbol, in it of itself?