Marketing Strategies - Can They Do Damage?

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I found an advertisement on the internet about a company would will devise online marketing strategies for a fee and started thinking about them overall. I wonder if marketing strategies can leave people feeling insecure and needy in order to convince them they have a need and must buy something to fulfill it? What kind of havoc do such strategies really create? Just watching the news, I saw a ploy concerning the West Nile Virus, a rainy spring and summer, a surplus of mosquitoes and how some of them have already tested positive for West Nile and maybe something like nine people have come down with it. Of course, I instantly started feeling nervous about mosquitos, then I thought, the odds of me coming down with complications is relatively low but the fear was instilled in my psyche just by watching the a story on the news that made such a big deal about it.

This is similar to how a marketing strategy can work - a company will exaggerate something to cause fear, something that might be very unlikely to happen in your life, just so they can save you with their product, that you must buy first.

Instilling that irrational fear might not be psychologically healthy.

A few years ago a university performed an experiment.

They found some girls to model clothing - one set of statistically average build, one set super skinny.

They had fashion students make two sets of clothing, tailored to fit the girls. Same styles, different sizes.

Had design and photography students shoot two catalogs - one average, one skinny. Same lighting and poses and setting, same layout.

Then they brought in random college girls and showed them one catalog or the other. Asked them if they liked the fashions and whether they would consider buying them for themselves.

And then in thanks for participating, offered them a family sized package of oreo cookies.

The girls who saw the skinny catalog more frequently said they would consider buying those fashions, and far less frequently accepted the cookies.