Is advertising immoral?

Advertising could be justified as a way to exposing and communicating the merits of a product or a service. Yet, when it becomes manipulating - as it always end up doing - we could justifiably wonder if it hasn't become perverted and has instead turned into one of the major tools employed to separate people from their money. In our society that value image and brands so much, advertising is often said to have become an alternative art form and the best example for that transformation is the fascination that goes towards watching ads during major sporting events like the Olympics and the Superbowl.

The cost of TV advertising is so high that only the most sophisticated spots can appear during those times. This said, advertising has evolved into a tool of conviction that is no longer selling what it was purported to do; instead it sells self-image, security and dreams. Sometime I blame that tool for debasing our society, for making folks borrow in excess to get, perhaps what they desire, but definitely what they don't need and, in so doing, debasing their fragile economic stability. That is why I truly believe that, most of the time, advertising has become routinely devious and blatantly immoral.