Modern marketing is largely extraordinarily efficient in fact, the opposite of absurd. It does a marvelous job of letting people know that things exist to be purchased. It's a compliment to free will. Buy, don't buy, the choice is yours.

What someone thinks of marketing & advertising will almost always tell you what they think of the intelligence of the typical person. Once you realize that, you realize it's merely a bias that someone is arguing from, that they think most everybody else is a moron and should be deprived of their individual liberty (for their own safety).