I actually don't believe that's entirely true either, or at least not as "bad" as you seem to think. Sure, any sort of advertiser would like you to use that product/service, but it's isn't necessarily trying to impact the way you think. There are plenty of ad campaigns that are simply trying to be made known. Without that, how would you expect any product to reach some sort of critical mass? Word of mouth alone?

Firefox, for example, used several different marketing avenues including a newspaper ad to try to make people aware of them. As far as I recall, that was all they were trying to do, let people know another browser option was out there. It seems a stretch to consider that as trying to manipulate your thinking.