A Panchutantra lament for classic marketing

There is a new law of the marketing universe.

The moment someone starts losing relevance in the new marketing world, they discover — with sudden academic clarity — the death of classic marketing and the indomitable power of brand building.

This insight usually arrives shortly after their last PowerPoint stopped getting calendar invites.

It is no longer just marketing veterans. Advertising veterans have joined the mourning too. Together, they patrol LinkedIn like cultural archaeologists, lamenting how marketing has been reduced to dashboards, discounts, and “slot-machine tactics”. Pull lever. Get click. Barbaric.

Panchutantra, being a responsible chronicler of human folly, cannot be left behind. We must mourn our own civilisation before mocking the next one.

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So let us grieve properly. Slowly. With violins.

Let us remember what exactly has died.

Ah yes. Classic marketing.

The age of the claim.

Not truth. Not proof. The claim.

Lemon. Iron. Calcium. Fairness. Confidence. Destiny.

We once built a nation-shaping detergent campaign around the presence of lemon. Not cleaning efficacy. Lemon. The yellow orb entered the frame and stains surrendered out of respect. Years later, a court asked a rude question — and the lemon lost the case. Not metaphorically. Literally. The claim collapsed. The jingle lived on.

We raised entire generations of super-intelligent children on trace levels of iron and vitamins. Drink this. Top the class. Parenting, genetics, curiosity — inefficient variables best removed from the narrative.

Then came our most profitable contribution to capitalism: insecurity, disguised as insight.

Cracked heels. Dark skin. Body shape. Hair texture.

Self-esteem, thoughtfully packaged in tubes.

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We explained — with moist eyes and Oscar-grade sincerity — why a dark woman wouldn’t get married or hired. Until a chemical compound arrived and restored her destiny. Not society. Not bias. Not patriarchy. A formulation.

This, we called deep consumer insight.

It was actually manipulation hiding under the garb of insight. But with better lighting.

And purpose. Oh, how we adored purpose. We were changing the world one chewing gum at a time. Saving childhood with chocolate. Selling excess sugar as energy, exhilaration, youthful vibes — and, in moments history will politely forget, as an ingredient to “grow up faster”.

We sold fear through finance. Greed as ambition. Anxiety as aspiration. And congratulated ourselves on the deck.

Now compare this with today’s vulgarity.

A discount. At the last mile.

No violin. No moral arc. Just arithmetic.

Frankly, offensive.

So what exactly are we missing?

Perhaps not marketing itself — but our priesthood. The loss of a time when a small, well-dressed group decided which insecurities were tasteful, which lies were lyrical, and which manipulations qualified as craft.

Because marketing never killed the truth.

It only injured it gently.

Remember those handwash commercials that killed 99.9% of germs? The dramatic zoom. The martial soundtrack. And always — always — one or two germs left alive. A legal shield. A disclaimer with legs.

Marketing never promised total annihilation. It left a couple of germs behind.

Perhaps it is those two unkilled germs (keetanu) that are taking revenge today.

They have multiplied. Mutated. Gone programmatic. They live in dashboards, discounts, retargeting loops, and brutal transparency. They don’t sing jingles. They don’t promise transformation.

They ask only one question:

Will you click?

And suddenly, we are grieving.

Not because marketing has become shallow.

But because it has finally stopped pretending it was deep.