I think the part they miss has been the ease with which people can establish awareness of the major market players once they have a need. If anything ads are more useful for small/new companies than the big ones that currently drive all the pressure for targeting.

I have severely limited my exposure to ads for a few years now. No regular TV / streaming only, ad-blockers + disabled javascript by default, no daily commute. With all of that I am almost certainly on the low end of the "brand awareness" scale.

Even still, I just do a regular internet or maps search and I am suddenly aware of all the major market players for whatever I am after. In this sense, getting me to buy your product is more a matter of location and market share than the location or targeting of your ads.

I'm sure a lot of people currently operate this way and there's really nothing stopping everyone on earth from operating this way. With that in mind, I don't think it makes sense for ad studies to assume the information needs to be forced into my head or the product won't have a chance.