Yeah. Along the same lines, anyone who has ever attempted to start a business knows that advertising in various ways is essential.
If you banned all advertising, you'd be doing a huge favor to the largest, most established companies--the ones that already have high brand awareness.
As much as ads suck, they also provide a relatively democratic form of access to markets for new entrants. Without them, the only hope is going viral organically, which is more or less equivalent to winning the lottery.