I Knew You Were Trouble.

I have always loved the field of marketing for one reason more than any other — storytelling. It provides the opportunity to create shared experiences and exposure. But lately, I’ve been wondering — when did storytelling stop feeling personal and start feeling programmed? Somewhere along the way, it stopped reflecting who we are and began shaping who we should be.

So as I look out at the billboards blurring past on my cab rides, I can’t help but feel that storytelling has been gently repurposed to align more with what sells than what speaks. Take the billboards in Pune — almost every single one is pushing real estate.

Success in a photo

At first, I used to think the wildest part of these billboards was the inflated prices for apartments — but lately, something more layered, even sinister, has started to reveal itself. No matter the builder, the location, or the price, the storytelling ranges from fantasies of living in what resembles the Amazon rainforest to promises of guaranteed success in life. And they keep getting more bizarre. Some ads introduce absurd, pseudo-scientific metrics like child-centric quotients; others are selling river-view apartments where the river may well arrive after possession. And if you’re going for it, you’ll find sleep priced per square foot, starting at ₹2 crore. While I often find them hilarious, this is calculated storytelling, crafted by some of the biggest players in the business, selling dreams they can’t deliver even at ₹200 crores. Observing this kind of immersive, relentless marketing, I’ve come to see how they’ve perfected the art of distraction since the only forests left in Pune are on these billboards.

I recall a question being asked in marketing class continually: How many times in a day do you see an ad? Nine times out of ten, we’d answer — billboards or newspaper ads. But that one time, which is increasingly becoming the norm, the unsuspecting product page on a shopping website is also an ad. The thing is, back then, we didn’t even consider that a product page could be an ad. That’s how deep and seamless the messaging had become. We didn’t know to count it — and that, in itself, is a triumph of marketing. Each page is an ad, quietly evolving — its palette, tone, and tempo adjusted with surgical precision based on how long we hover, what we click, and what we skip. Our behaviour becomes the blueprint. 

Ads aren’t occasional anymore — they’ve become ambient. The only measure that even remotely captures their nuisance is time itself. Twenty-four hours in a day, and every single one of them can go into interacting with ads, each one optimised to spark desire, trigger response, and call for action — often without us even realising it. The fact that a 'trending now' section feels like social proof rather than a marketing tactic, or that a Spotify playlist titled ‘Monday Motivation’ can quietly sell you activewear in the cover image — and still not feel like an ad — shows just how invisible marketing has become. These are the success stories that textbooks quote with admiration. How did we get here, where behaviours are engineered so seamlessly, we don't even notice we’re aboard the Titanic of our marketing dreams, heading straight for the iceberg?

Take something as simple as a T-shirt. You need one. That’s sensible. But suddenly, you’re shown one for running, one for football, one for yoga, and one for lounging. The product is the same, but the story is tailored to imagined scenarios, turning one need into five wants. They’re not just selling functionality anymore; they’re selling possibilities, versions of your life you didn’t even know you could have. You’re not buying fabric — you're buying potential. Even the simplest items — a white tee, a pair of jeans — yes, the Steve Jobs fit — are now dressed up in seasonal drops and collaborations. Minimalism itself is monetised, while Steve, ironically, sold us devices that need replacing every three years. And in the process, we think less and less about the long-term habits being formed — distracted just enough to keep consuming, without pausing to question why. What we witness in this age is not just persuasion, but the art of distraction elevated to an industry. And the longer you look, the clearer it becomes — the logic of marketing is no longer just about selling, it’s about shaping our behaviour, all the while making it look like it's our choice.

But after all this manufactured desire, I find myself craving something I didn’t expect — a memory of when stories weren’t strategies. Sure, ads existed then as well. Billboards lied, jingles still stuck, and brands still tried to catch our eye. But they weren’t trying to know us, not like now. They weren’t embedded in our routines, tracking our choices, or trying to shape who we were becoming. Back then, a book cover could stop time, not track engagement. Back then, our curiosity was the only thing going from A to Z — and no one was tracking how long we lingered on a page. Stories lived in quiet corners — in creased spines and scribbled margins — not in conversion funnels.

So let me take you somewhere quiet. Somewhere smaller. Somewhere, my love for stories began.

Jumping out of our maroon-red Maruti 800, we stretched our legs, the leafy maroon seat covers slightly crinkling beneath us. The car smelled of warm vinyl — angled askew, like the spines of well-loved books on a crowded shelf — as it came to a stop. We paused every time we looked at the white, Roman-inspired courtyard. At just about four feet tall, it was the closest thing I could witness of Italy—its charm, its elegance, a small slice of another world tucked away in the middle of my city. But like distracted puppies who couldn’t hold their attention for long, we would dart past it, already fixated on our next mission—the dingy staircase. We hoped to catch the elevator to the fifth floor, but it was old, slow, and always packed too quickly, which meant a quick run up the staircase.

A bold black wall greeted us, emblazoned with the word “Crossword” in yellow. But the real arrival wasn’t about seeing it—it was about feeling it. The moment we stepped through the door, the overhead air curtain whooshed to life, blasting a rush of cold air onto our sun-warmed faces. It wasn’t just relief from the heat; it carried something else—a scent, a memory, a whisper of ink drying on untouched pages, of birch wooden shelves steeped in stories, of something almost like petrichor—cosy, fleeting, familiar. Back then however, we were too caught up in the pure joy of being let loose—no parents keeping tabs, no tasks waiting to be done—just endless aisles to wander, and the unspoken rule that we could pick up anything, flip through it, and put it back like we owned the place.

As you walked in, it felt like stepping into a library—cosy, intimate aisles winding through walls of books stacked so perfectly they felt like part of the architecture itself. The wooden shelves snugly lined the aisles, making everything feel within reach, like the familiar comfort of a well-worn sofa or your favourite study chair. Like most children, we would first take a lap around the store, gathering books in a little basket and just as the basket got heavier and increasingly lopsided, we would find a corner and hunker down into new worlds.

From the adventures of Nancy Drew and Sherlock Holmes to the mysteries of the Secret Seven, we could go anywhere. One moment, we were racing through the corridors of Malory Towers, and the next, uncovering hidden doorways with the Famous Five. We got lost in the nonsense of Dr. Seuss, stepped through the wardrobe into Narnia, and let Goosebumps convince us that maybe—just maybe—our old toys were haunted. Enid Blyton’s worlds felt like second homes, where midnight feasts and secret clubs were the norm. Roald Dahl made us believe that chocolate could change lives and that sometimes, the grown-ups weren’t right. Disney books were glossy, colourful, and familiar, like holding a piece of the movies in our hands.

And then there were the books that made us feel smart. Encyclopedias with their crisp pages and bold headings, which we’d skim through, convinced we were absorbing knowledge by sheer proximity. The Magic School Bus took us on wild detours through the human body, the solar system, and the depths of the ocean—no seatbelts required. Ripley’s Believe It or Not! and Guinness World Records had us memorising the weirdest facts, just to say, “Did you know…?” to anyone who would listen.

Some days, it was stories closer to home—Amar Chitra Katha brought mythology and history alive, while Akbar and Birbal taught us how wit could win over power. Comics were a world of their own—our first brush with Batman and Superman came from glossy, oversized editions that felt too cool to put down. Asterix and Obelix made history fun in a way our schoolbooks never could, while Tintin sent us trotting across the globe with a tuft-haired reporter and his trusty dog. Archie Comics gave us a peek into an American high school that felt impossibly exciting, with its love triangles, milkshakes, and somehow, no actual classes.

Some days, we finished entire books in one sitting, parked in a corner, completely oblivious to time. Other days, we read a little of everything—jumping between pages, stacking books beside us, grazing through words like it was an all-you-can-read buffet. And sometimes, we didn’t read at all. It wasn’t about tracking books read per month or chasing reading goals—it was about comfort. It wasn’t a space that pushed you to purchase — it invited you to linger. The scent of coffee wrapped around us like comfort, portraits of writers lined the walls in soft brush strokes, and somewhere in the distance, Dance of the Swans played low — just enough to stir something quiet in me, even as I fidgeted in the Barbie corner.

We just picked up, ran our fingers over the covers, flipped through the pages, and let ourselves want. Crossword afforded us that as a brand. Wanting felt different back then. It’s not that we didn’t have desires — we did. We longed for new books, imagined owning that glossy encyclopedia, and dreamed of secret clubs and magic potions. But there was space between the wanting and the having. There was time to daydream, to weigh, to wonder. The noise wasn’t constant. There wasn’t an algorithm adjusting itself to our every glance, trying to close the gap between thought and transaction. We were allowed to be unsure, to browse without being nudged, to imagine without immediately having to act.

Today, friction is gone, replaced by infinite scrolls and one-click checkouts. We’re shaped quietly, seamlessly — until we’re not. Desire no longer arises from within; it’s handed to us, urgency-stamped and algorithm-approved. We need to reintroduce the slowness that gave shape to longing before consumption took over.

Maybe that’s what we’ve lost — not just time, but space. Space to reflect, to choose, to want on our terms. Because the real power of marketing today isn’t in informing — it’s in immersing. In distracting us just long enough to stop asking harder questions.

In the end, we’re not deciding — we’re reacting. And the unsettling part? Ads have dissolved into the rhythm of our lives. We have gone from self directed marketing to manipulative marketing.

So maybe the real question isn’t: How many ads did I see today?

It’s: How many moments did I reclaim — from distraction, from noise, from the illusion of choice — to simply want, and wait? At the very least, we’ll realise that our dream view only opens into someone else’s dream, still under construction.

P.S. This piece is a love letter to the Crossword that gave me stories, shelter, and something to return to. With the recent closure of India’s largest Crossword, this is my small ode to what was.