Advertising is the key to success in any business. How else can a new business make itself seen or heard except by competing with other players to grab buyers’ attention? Advertising is always reinventing itself—advanced technologies are able to pinpoint audiences exhibiting a certain behavior, cognitive media are personalizing media experiences, programmatic buying is improving campaign ROI, augmented reality is making static images come to life and even recognizes what the camera is seeing. These are just some of the innovations that make users pause and register the brand, sometimes with an everlasting impact. Advertising will always be important to me and, within advertising, so will the role of media.

The media industry has always fascinated me, and I believe in the power of media exposure—especially within the digital media ecosystem. Technology and logical reasoning with digital media can today reach out to the right audience with minimal spillover.

That said, I am clearly inclined to appreciate innovative media and digital solutions that intelligently address marketing needs, and social media in particular has a special place in my mindspace. This may be because, as a student studying engineering at the Manipal Institute of Technology, I saw the hi5 and Orkut days. I used these social networking platforms to reach out and make new friends, communicate about upcoming lectures, and form closed groups to solve assignments.

In my 10+ years of experience in this ever-evolving space, I have seen new media trends quickly rise and saturate the market with just one commonality: digital, which has always been on a growth trajectory where learning never stops. It inspired me back then in the social plane; today, it inspires me with integrated planning, machine learning, and data-driven media optimization, and the future as cognitive. I am still learning and still in search of something specific.