Are we controlled by advertising?

It's so weird to think that every idea that we have or anything that we want to buy was triggered by an ad we saw or a billboard we drove past. Are we brainwashed as a society or are we just easily influenced? We are exposed to ads every second without even realizing it. However, this may not be completely bad. How else would our society run if this wasn't the case? Businesses wouldn't survive because the world wouldn't know that their products even exist. People would lose their jobs and eventually our society would collapse. So as much as people criticize advertising, its actually the puzzle piece thats keeping our society together. So with this being said, I came to the conclusion that... ADVERTISING RUNS OUR SOCIETY.