I was always fascinated by the advertising world. It all started when I was a kid, 10 years old, watching the first color TV my father bought in early 80s. I always wondered what it would be like to be able design an ad that intrigued people. Wondered what would make people stop and make them watch what I created. I was puzzled as to how I could gain their appreciation for my ideas and thinking and above all make them consume the message I had in mind. Of course back then there weren’t as many channels as we have now. I remember 1 channel, DD. Now I have too many options and I still watch may be 3 channels at most.
It is almost by accident that I got into the advertising business. Growing up I was supposed to be an engineer. So I did get my bachelors and masters in engineering. As I grew older and wiser I decided to pursue my true passion of people, ads, ideas and thought leadership. And sure enough on one hot summer day in early 2000, sitting in my MBA school computer lab, I decided to apply for a position in marketing with a start-up Search Marketing company. At that time I had little idea what Search Marketing was about and searching for it did not yield many results back then for me to learn either.
Soon enough I get a e-mail and a call to attend the interview. I was interviewed by the CEO in the company's NYC office. I drove down there and of course got a fat ticket (which I paid by the way- just to set the record straight). But, on the brighter side, I guess he saw the potential and passion in me and kicked me off to his operations office in LI, NY. A week later I met the President in the LI office, who after speaking with me decided to give me a full time opportunity in the Search Engine Marketing department. Needless to say, I accepted. And the rest as they say is history.
I consider myself fortunate to have entered the ad space, specifically online ad space, as early as I did in its nascent stage. My life in this field has been anything but boring and static. I have had a very exciting professional career, not to mention social gatherings that took me to the swankiest places in NYC, Florida, Chicago, SanFrancisco, Dallas and to many more cities and now countries. Places where only the elite would dare step in and I could not afford on my own.
The successes have been immense, so have been the downfalls. But with each step came learnings. Learnings, that shaped me to become a better person. I learnt from people on how to approach business, how to be strategic, creative and think to grow your business and that of your clients’ and above all how to be with people and work with fellow ad professionals. And just when I thought I have learnt a lot, I did more- most importantly from ‘a few’ people on what NOT to do. I almost see learning 'what not to do' as more critical than learning what to do.
The field of online advertising, yes, as you can tell I have diversified myself tremendously from the early days of search advertising, has given me the opportunity to lead teams of great professionals who helped me become a good manager and a good leader. Here I have touched various facets of online advertising from search to display to affiliate to social media. I have also had the opportunity to diversify in terms of my companies and clients, ranging from B2B to B2C with verticals touching pretty much all industries from hotel and travel, to finance to technology/telecom to dating.
Today, through an experienced but a constantly learning mind, I see new emerging media taking over the world. Everyone is talking about it, everyone is looking to sound cool with buzz words like social media, socialCRM and socialcommerce.
I am glad to be, once again at the cutting edge of this new wave in the online advertising field where I get to test and prove and do all sorts of cool things. Once again learning from the good, the bad the ugly and diversifying myself towards the good.
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