If Don Draper has taught me anything (besides the hobo code), it's that advertising is all about creating a mood and selling a story. That's what people buy; the product is secondary.
Take, for example, the following T-Mobile commercial. They're not just selling whatever a MyTouch Fender edition is; they're selling the feeling that seeing the dried-out husk of Eric Clapton cough up musical tumbleweeds while stroking a guitar phone evokes. For me, that feeling is unadulterated rage tempered with profound irritation. It's a mood that I can only describe as "suffocating slowly in flavorless Jell-o."
But I'm sure there are many people who would get a different feeling from watching this commercial. They might see Eric Clapton strum his guitar phone while the least rocking song about rock n' roll ever oozes forth from his tired guts like regurgitated oatmeal, and think "That phone is rockin'—like my new bolo tie. I'm gonna buy one!"
In a way, this awful, awful commercial is very shrewd of T-Mobile. After all, there is nothing "rock n' roll" about a Fender app built for a fake iPhone called the MyTouch. Phones should never try to be "rock n' roll." This commercial demonstrates that fact perfectly.