It's not either/or, both things can be true. The mrna vaccines have probably had more resources spent on promoting them than any product in recent history (ie marketing). I would argue that their mindshare is due to that and not some innate ability of the public to know what will be a successful pharmaceutical technology or not.
This is all orthogonal to whether or not the tech eventually delivers on all the possibilities.
This is all orthogonal to whether or not the tech eventually delivers on all the possibilities.