The point OP made is the opposite.
Everyone already thinks marketing shapes our idea of what is "normal". The question is "Does it really do this?"
Everyone already thinks marketing shapes our idea of what is "normal". The question is "Does it really do this?"
When I was growing up the "I am Canadian"[1] rant was a super-popular thing in my school. But this is from a beer ad of all things! And yet in some way it helped shape what being Canadian meant for a significant number of people at the time. If you make the argument that your peer group influences what is normal that's still no escape from marketing as friends of mine were literally quoting this ad word-for-word.
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a straight line between marketing and a specific effect. Ideas and culture don't work like that. But they do work, otherwise nothing cultural would ever change - fashion, as an industry, wouldn't exist.
The diamonds marketing campaign shows that marketing really can completely change cultural norms