Yes, you are right, there are (at least) two effects of advertising: 1. Education (let people know a company/product exists) 2. Manipulation (by various means

Yes, you are right, there are (at least) two effects of advertising: 1. Education (let people know a company/product exists) 2. Manipulation (by various means) From a moral point of view, the first effect is not bad. It actually helps people to make better decisions and extend their knowledge about available products and services. However, the second effect is the harmful one. Since companies are trying to make money, they want as many people as possible to buy their products. So they start lying, leaving the negative aspects of their products out, use visual material that creates yearning contexts, present the information at a higher frequency than relevant and so on. So saying it is just about getting your attention is a huge understatement. Simply put, the advertising industry tries to find human vulnerabilities on a daily basis. Sadly, not to inform and help protect us, but to exploit them. If advertising was actually about helping society, the spending would be more like a tax (independent from the effect), the visual appearance would be standardized and the process of presenting ads would be strictly controlled by a neutral entity. Furthermore, everybody would be allowed to not participate. Maybe the receivers of that valuable, educating information should even pay to have access to it. And I am sure, at this point you are with me, that the majority of ads aren't about educating people but about placing information in their heads.