But drinks barely have any features you can market. If they do, they're front and center (less sugar or calories, more vitamins or minerals, sparkling or non sparkling)

Same for cigarettes and other similar products.

Some people may prefer the flavor of one product over the other, but at the end, it's purely about lifestyle and the feeling of a brand, and that is shaped by marketing.

So if I create a brand around a drink I can just run a few commercials on TV to associate my brand with something people want (like I don't know, being percieved as sexy by the opposite sex) then I will have a successful business?

100% anyone who tries this will fail