So is all communication. That friend you tells you about his morning, or some current event? He's expecting to elicit a particular type of response. We don't generally care too much, because we attribute good, or at least harmless intentions to their communication. We manipulate the emotions of those around us as a secondary communication channel.

Advertising is communication as well. The difference is that we often adopt an adversarial stance when dealing with it, because while most advertising is about the company selling you something and mostly harmless (if annoying) it's still informative of the product, but some advertising is outright misleading and can confuse the issue. Advertising isn't bad because it tries to manipulate you, but it can be bad when that manipulation is to get you to do something that isn't in your best interests (otherwise it ranges from helpful, through useless, and to annoying).

Advertising can be useful and helpful. It helps people determine what is available in the market and make a decision on what to buy or what to research. The name of a store on it's exterior, and the name of a site at the top are both advertising, and useful. You may have decided that you think this trade in information is not worth your time, and that's fine, but I reject any argument so simplistic as to say advertising is bad and possibly immoral because it's manipulative. It's too simplistic to have a meaningful relation to reality in this case, and thus has no place in this discussion, IMO.