[Bartweiss]

Advertising today is fundamentally about denying us the chance to listen to and reject messages. When someone's pushing a product on the rational part of our brains, it looks like Amazon's recommended list - features and a price, presented in the faith that we really do want the product.

Radio, TV, and web advertising, by contrast, all share the assumption that most people won't actually benefit from what's being presented (at least, won't benefit more than they would from some equivalent good). As such, the task is to ensure that we're preferentially aware of one brand or product, regardless of its merits.

Your last point is the scary one. Most people have no training of any sort in defending against cognitive failures. Most people's "can't trick me" tools amount to checking unit prices and serving sizes - hardly a strong defense against the combined wisdom of advertisers.

There's a real argument that modern advertising is basically an information hazard. Just hearing a product name a dozen times biases us regardless of our conscious efforts.