Oh no... Duffy gets on her bike in Diet Coke spot

Fudge... what true value isn't lost through your own interpretation/understanding of it? Explain real value as opposed to false value and I'll come aboard. The idea that advertising inflated the intrinsic value of a product or service or added "bullshit" (as opposed to differentiation) to products is lost when you consider what objective value or worth the product has in the first place.

True, you can achieve something through a product or service, but that remains lost in personal experience, individual consciousness or history/culture. We add the "bullshit" everyday on an individual level, advertising just comes across as a clunky, crappy monster as it isn't as changeable or reactive as an individual... yet, shame.

Differentiation should not be achieved through advertising... it should be achieved through difference. Advertising should communicate selling points, not create them.

A good illustration of "real value" versus "false value" would be to imagine a hypothetical situation in which advertising is used to inflate the price of a Unipack beyond that of a Giant Bowery. The Unipack weighs a ton and isn't very durable - it's true value is indisputably lower than the Bowery. The price increase from the advertising in this case would be "false value".

I imagine that you would argue that it is actually "real value" to the consumer who has bought something that they consider "desirable", despite the fact that the desirability is entirely concocted. There is definitely a grey area to be explored here, which is why fixing the value of something (as opposed to the price) is such a challenge. However, just because the line is blurry doesn't mean that it doesn't exist - there is a sensible value there and ultimately it does no good to society to sell goods or services priced wildly away from their value.