>>Most of the time, advertising is a parasite on just about everything.

I guess we need some advertizing to know what's out there. As for the rest: you're right that cynical marketers claim that more creativity and cost goes into branding/marketing than into product design these days. But they wouldn't do it if it didn't work. Just as tabloids feed the sensationalist desires of a certain audience along with firebrand politicians etc etc, branders/advertizers make their $ by feeding into a target audience's desire to be part of something cool, preferably with price being part of the barrier to entry. Unfortunately whether we like it or not is as nothing compared to billions of dollars of sales driven by branding at the expense of quality. Who cares if the shirt frays or fades as long as it has this season's cool logo? Such is life.