Maybe not, but those things may still wield pretty heavy influence. Advertising is a strange world of subconscious desires and difficult-to-rationalize preferences (colors and shapes of buttons, for example).
From an article I read the other day:
"The cognitive revolution of the past thirty years provides a different perspective on our lives, one that emphasizes the relative importance of emotion over pure reason, social connections over individual choice, moral intuition over abstract logic, perceptiveness over I.Q."
- http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/17/110117fa_fact_...