[ddeck]

Well the labels are unimportant. The point is that certain elements of advertising/marketing seem reasonable and it could be argued that they are value adding to consumers as well as the advertisers, while others are manipulative and outright unethical.

[punee]

That's not a claim that will meet much opposition.

However, to claim that marketing is inherently "manipulative", or that manipulative tactics are even a significant part of it, seems a little ill-informed.

Y Combinator's motto is "Make something people want". To the overwhelming majority of practitioners, this is exactly what marketing sets out to do.