I feel your own examples undermine your positions:

Drinks specifically are one of the most clearcut negative examples to me, where there is zero product discovery/information/customer upside involved; the sole purpose of that CocaCola banner is to marginally shift the ad-targets consumption behavior (fully to his or her detriment, either from overconsuming and/or overpaying).

If I seek product information, ads are the absolute last place to look because they have all the incentive to hide everything negative about the product and to obfuscate any comparison with potentially superior competitors.

I'm not saying that all marketing is a wasteful detriment to humanity as a whole, but a lot of advertising has a zero-sum "benefit" to society, while binding a lot of ressources (but every rational company is somewhat "forced" to play anyway).