I actually see, in the broader picture, marketing differently. Marketing is the tool that gives me the consumer all of the choices that I have. So take cars for example. Magazine and TV ads make me aware of all the choices I have. and it's up to me to choose from amongst them.
in sub prime, marketing keeps the consumer aware of the competitive offers among vendors of subprime--who might have the best terms.
but then again, to your point, on subprime it probably makes the overall prospects of owning your own home more appealling, and keeps that thought in your head. so in that sense it's negative, and your parallel to the case of whiskey for a teenage party is a good one.
One could say the same about war. Armies are manipulated as a group to achieve strategic and tactical ends, but the immediate consequences are individual - if you are one of the inevitable casualties. You can't be me, I'm taken
