I think I would not be surprised if you're right about the publishers putting a YA marketing tag for the sizable group of adults who read YA. But then, you'd think, if adults are reading YA because they enjoy the teen themes and references, it would be sort of missing the whole point.
Yeah, I don't know. It's not the first time a YA book has had me wondering about that... I can only guess at the line of reasoning behind the marketing sometimes lol