Advertising is unethical in my opinion when it lies or misleads, or it fosters fears and impulses that negatively impact individuals quality of life, or their social contribution and therefore others' QoL. One example is advertising toys to kids during kids programming: most of this is done in a way that makes kids feel left out for not having the toys, relies on FOMO, envy, and molds susceptible children into more jealous and materialistic people. It misleads them with its imagery into thinking they will be extremely happy if they just have that thing. I think that perhaps even the majority of what is done as accepted practice in advertising (across all its forms) is harmful, and further, it will stay that way because the $ales a campaign generates are the only measure of success as far as success is rewarded.

>Advertising is unethical in my opinion when it lies or misleads, or it fosters fears and impulses that negatively impact individuals quality of life, or their social contribution and therefore others' QoL

Hard to disagree with that, but this is very different from the parent poster's claim.

That depends if the ad is just presenting something or the marketeer engages in further "perception management" (I don't know the jargon).

This stuff, buying clicks, lobbying platforms to ban content you don't want to be associated with your product/service because it could distort its "cleanness".

Advertising is needed but there are a lot of valid reasons people don't like them very much.

The parent made a pretty blanket statement that marketing is wrong.

There are bad marketers as there are bad programmers, bad lawyers and bad physicians, but we don't jump to 'all programming is bad'.

Didn't say that all marketing or even the majority is wrong. Just that there are bad practices.

Yes, it very much depends. That's precisely the point.