Why bother

Read this article and just had to ask myself  what really is the role of advertising in the sales process?

I've always felt advertising's job was to help consumers make buying decisions (in my client's favor of course) versus the the belief that advertising can actually sell someone something they don't necessarily want. Seems BMW, like many other advertisers, especially in the SEO world are functioning under the belief that advertising can sell someone something they don't already inherently want/can afford.

Too bad Google blacklisted them. Would have loved to see the click-through and conversion numbers on those ads.