Yes they are. All advertising is based around the lie of creating false associations. Buying a truck won't make you a 'MAN.' Drinking a particular brand of soda won't bring about world peace, make you 'cool,' or really even cure your thirst, generally. Even the most generic, 'buy our thing. It's good thing,' is based in the lie of 'buying our thing will make you happy.' It's shoved into everyone's face without consideration of truth value. It's the same as some guy walking up to everyone in a place and saying 'If you have normal sex with me, you will have the best orgasm of your life.' It might be true for a VERY limited number of people, but it's not true for everyone he's harassing to say it, it's not even guaranteed to be true for anyone, and he is 1000% guaranteed not to be saying it for the benefit of the people to whom he's saying it. Even when it's true, it's true by accident, a lie that failed to turn out to be false. It's pure manipulative bullshit.