I'm talking about "playing marketing games" and not advertising in general. Then I'm talking about how hard it is to tell the two apart and the lousy compromise

I'm talking about "playing marketing games" and not advertising in general. Then I'm talking about how hard it is to tell the two apart and the lousy compromises we've made in doing so. That being said I think brand awareness is mostly manipulative. Consumers need product awareness. It's definitely on the safer side of games though. I suspect it's fairly intrinsic/necessary. I don't want to advertise for my competitors. The sidebar on StackOverflow is great.