Nah, it works because our understanding of human psychology is real, and lots of people are susceptible to the messaging of advertising.

Propaganda (what advertising is at its core) still works under communism, it doesn’t suddenly stop working because capitalism no longer exists. If that was true, images like the one below wouldn’t have needed to exist to help promote the communist message. (Propaganda isn’t always inherently evil, sometimes it’s purpose is to help spread a political message that can be positive.)

I agree, marketing serves no fundamental purpose for society, because it’s essentially just lies to sell a product or service. However I vehemently disagree it only works because of capitalism.

That’s not the case. The following two statements can be simultaneously true:

• a sufficiently-good product would sell through word-of-mouth
• corporate executives are not satisfied with the small amount of purchases this would generate, because they want more profit.

Advertising is a way to generate morepurchases (and so more profit), but it might be increasing from a non-zero amount.

I don’t think that the person you’re replying to is entirely correct (some products or markets really do require advertising to make consumers aware), but they’re closer to right than they are to wrong on a level playing field. But if the other side is using advertising, you basically have to do the same in order to remain competitive.

if the water is being slapped it’s not stagnant so no mosquities :)