Advertising happiness and branding values

This article examines how the association of brands with values in advertising may be degrading and de-valuing those values. Just as the poets in Plato's time ascribed characteristics to gods and heroes that were inconsistent with their true nature, so too advertisers ascribe marketing characteristics to values that are inconsistent with those values: characteristics, like manufacturability, consumption, expendability, replacement, exchangeability, tradability, exhaustion, depreciation and price. Unlike consumable products that one trades for a price ,our societal values are non-consumable, non-expendable, non-replaceable, non-exchangeable, non-tradable, non-exhaustible, non-depreciable and ultimately, priceless.