Certainly marketing can lie. The "funnest iPod ever" didn't make the iPod touch into a brilliant gaming console. (Casual gaming, maybe, come to think of it, but that's beyond my knowledge. Anybody else know about this?) However, it's good at indicating what somebody wants you to think. Droid's ad wanted you to think: "iPhone sucks, Droid rules." Apple's ad wants you to think: "This thing was made by a wizard." Relevant to today's discussions because a lot of people seem to be wondering what Apple's thinking, when I think Apple's been pretty obvious.

I actually wouldn't call this revolutionary. That's why we're not reacting gleefully. It's evolutionary. It just happens to have evolved in a way that gives it a potential radical significance.

Semirelated: Studying advertisements is a brilliant way to study history. It lets you in on all society's biases and wants and needs and fears. Modern advertisement is as insightful to the human condition as modern poetry, though it goes at it a bit ass-backwards and rarely as tactfully.