Is Advertising and Graphic Design Selling the Expierince?

Hell Yes! A good example is any Car commercial. Driving on the edge of death, better put, a cliff, at insane speeds. Nissan's slogan at one point in time was 'Experience Nissan'. A Common North American car commercial sounds something like this, "enjoy all 8 cupholders and DVD players." That would be an experience. This is only a small example, but I could provide tonnes of examples where a brand is selling the experience through design. Another common example, the Apple iPod, with words I won't explain.

In this Apple Ipod ad, are they 'the advertisers' selling you an experience? Sure are, who doesn't want to dance and sing in your own personal little iPod-musical world to psychedelic colours?

By showing someone a design that represents some sort of pleasing experience, that someone will hopefully crave the experience, and quite possibly consider investing in that brand. That is effective design. I believe selling the experience is an extremely effective strategy because the general public are always full of cravings, it's easy enough to tap into their minds and fulfill them with an experience's via design that gets them going.