Has advertising lost its sense of discovery?

I recently started using StumbleUpon to explore the web. If you've never heard of it or used it, I suggest signing up / clicking on the link above to learn more. What I love about StumbleUpon is that it enhances one of the key ways in which I use the web: to discover.

This got me thinking about advertising. Has advertising lost it's ability to tell us (as consumers) something new? Has it lost its sense of discovery? I don't know about you, but I rarely (if ever) discover something new (let alone something I care about) from an advertisement. Is that advertising's fault or have the tools at our disposal changed so much that advertising (in its traditional form) is becoming less relevant to our sense of discovery? Instead, is advertising now all about creating objects of desire? I don't know, but I wonder...