Yup, I'm perfectly aware of how valuable it is to a business while absolutely loathing marketing in general. The ROI is clear, but so is the fact that I value my own time and sanity and see marketing as a clear attack on my peace of mind.
There is an aspirational claim of marketing: it's trying to raise brand awareness and make sure customers know that your product is an option when a customer decides to purchase a product in the segment (i.e. When a consumer needs to replace their knives we want to make sure CutsAwesome is on their brand radar)... but marketing in the modern world is much more about creating demand when there was none ("Feeling depressed and lonely? Well drinking our beer will surround you with attractive people!").
I think consumer oriented marketing is an externalized cost on society - we are lowering everyone's productivity so you can sell three extra cans of coke and it's hurting us economically.
You're mostly describing bad or poorly targeted advertising. It's not only a cost on society but also a huge and largely avoidable waste of the businesses' resources. It's frustrating to see so many businesses squandering their limited promotional resources on poorly targeted advertising that is certainly under-performing, if not actively damaging their brand.
It keeps happening because too many rank-and-file marketers are incompetent at their jobs and too many business owners don't understand how to effectively measure and manage the performance of the marketing department.
There is an aspirational claim of marketing: it's trying to raise brand awareness and make sure customers know that your product is an option when a customer decides to purchase a product in the segment (i.e. When a consumer needs to replace their knives we want to make sure CutsAwesome is on their brand radar)... but marketing in the modern world is much more about creating demand when there was none ("Feeling depressed and lonely? Well drinking our beer will surround you with attractive people!").
I think consumer oriented marketing is an externalized cost on society - we are lowering everyone's productivity so you can sell three extra cans of coke and it's hurting us economically.