While some of what you say is true, it actually doesn't do a good job of explaining Brand advertising, which is exactly what the article naively seems to do a p

While some of what you say is true, it actually doesn't do a good job of explaining Brand advertising, which is exactly what the article naively seems to do a pretty good job of. (I have read Influence by the way). The writer states he is coining the term "emotional inception" (which is catchy so why not?) so pointing out it's not a real thing is just a cheap point. The first points he makes about a lot of advertising simply being true or intended to be true are very valid, and sidestep persuasion theory altogether (since it is chiefly concerned with persuasion via heuristic). The point about cultural imprinting (or whatever you want to call it) is, again naively quite insightful and explains brand advertising rather well. Of course a lot of this cultural imprinting is simply intended to trigger standard persuasive principles sometime down the line. (Corona is a beer drunk by relaxed, young, attractive people; that's the crowd I want to identify with, so I'll drink Corona -- this is classic social proof, one of Cialdini's six principles. And, incidentally, this works best on people being forced to make a decision that makes little difference, such as pick a beer or laundry soap.) So the problem isn't so much that the thesis is wrong, as that it is naively right, but is simply explaining the mechanism by which existing theory in fact applies.