And yet here we are and marketing has convinced people in the US to borrow $1.6 trillion to buy cars they cant afford.
Nobody forced these people to take our loans. The auto industry bends to trends, it doesn't create them.
The fact is, with or without marketing, people want nice things. And people have historically been willing to buy them on credit/loans. At least for our current capitalist society, that seems to be ab inherent feature.
I believe there is an ad guy from the 1960's (an old pro copywriter, a Greek, named Teddy) who managed to convince the world of just that.
But after owning it for 2 years I realised totally organically that what I really wanted was almost the same car but for £12,500, with some extra unnecessary features.
I'm so glad VW stepped in and delivered what I had been secretly desiring. A heavier, more complex car at a higher price. Thank you, VW!
That _cannot_ be the singular or even primary driver of a movement. Car manufacturers don't just make a car in a vacuum. They make what the market is asking for, and _then_ marketing steps in. Very few companies, like apple and Tesla, can foist weird stuff on consumers and have them like it. And even in those cases, they are really just building something they believe to be the faster horse.
There's a reason Tesla wanted to build and SUV and a model 3. There's a key target price point in the US for a car. No amount of marketing can make people buy a car they simply cannot afford.