Honestly, more power to you then! I’m glad you got to do something you’ve always wanted – I agree it’s super cool and I think that physical collector items are the one exception for me if I was to pre-order something. I’ll be forever jealous of your watch!
I always buy the cheapest option on the shelf (in terms of food). Usually that’s the store brand for the store I am in. For electronics I usually just do a lot of research (Reddit, looking into age of the company, picture reviews and 1 star complaints) and ask friends. I’m sure that the “ads” shown in my research sway me sometimes though when I’m truly clueless about something and just have to take people’s word for it.
Sometimes, though, the people you’re trusting to be objective have been swayed by ads themselves! It’s honestly impossible IMO to be completely unaffected by ads because of that. Even if you never see an ad in your life – the people around you have.