No it isn't. It's just a shame that 99.99% of the industry are ruining it for the rest of them.
Advertising a new product or service is great, but showing me the ads over and over again is manipulation. Creating a brand to get people emotionally invested is manipulation. Almost the entire industry is manipulating people to buy something they didn't want, spend more than they should have (including the costs that marketing adds to the product) or trying to convince them to buy from you instead of someone else.
Marketing is a subset of the Exploitation Economy, which is effectively a global cult now.
Everything in the exploitation economy is evil. But then most previous attempts at large-scale human organisation have been evil too, in their own ways.
It's possible to have a humane non-exploitation economy, and it might even be possible for it to include some marketing. But it would look very different to the economy we have today.
How exactly is exploitation defined? That term has been awfully watered down to the point a miller buying wheat, grinding it to flour, and then selling the flour qualifies because the farmer doesn't get paid a second time - despite doing the miller doing useful work and the fact a farmer can always mill themselves with just flat stones if the deal is so bad.
No it isn't. It's just a shame that 99.99% of the industry are ruining it for the rest of them.
Advertising a new product or service is great, but showing me the ads over and over again is manipulation. Creating a brand to get people emotionally invested is manipulation. Almost the entire industry is manipulating people to buy something they didn't want, spend more than they should have (including the costs that marketing adds to the product) or trying to convince them to buy from you instead of someone else.