The Basics

Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Brown
Height: 5-11
Profession: Advertising
Relationship Status: Married
Religious Views: Believe in the Supreme Power
My Favorites Favorite Color: Blue, white
Favorite Car: Ferrari
Favorite Movie: The Lake House
Favorite Hobby: Water colours
Favorite Song/Singer: Phill Collins - Groovy kind of Love
Favorite Book/Author: Richard Bach - Illusions
Favorite School Subject: Geography
Favorite Vacation Destination: Harihareshwar
Favorite Food: Chinese
Favorite Restaurant: Mainland China
Favorite Animal: Dog
Favorite Store: Carrefour
Favorite Celebrity : Jason Sataham
Favorite Childhood Friend: Ballu - Ashish Chiwhane
Favorite Childhood Memory: Catching Crabs (in Mumbai with earthworm sticks)
Favorite Baby Name: Aseem and Antaraa
Favorite Person In Your Life: My appi
Favorite Facebook Application : Pokey - Dog
This or That Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate
Big Mac or Whopper: Big Mac
Coke or Pepsi : Coke
Beer or Wine: beer
Coffee or Tea: Coffee
Apple Juice or O.J.: Apple Juice
Facebook or MySpace: facebook
Summer or Winter: winter
Windows or Mac: Windows
Cats or Dogs: Dogs
Boxers or Briefs: Briefs
Rain or Shine : Rain
Chips or Popcorn: Chips
Salty or Sweet: salty
Plane or Boat: Plane
Morning or Night: Morning

Movie or Play:
Play

Walk or Drive:
walk

Money or Love:
Love

Breakfast or Dinner:
Dinner

Forgiveness or Revenge:
Forgiveness

Paint or Wallpaper:
wallpaper

House or Apartment:
House

Do You?
Have Any Pets:
Nope

Have Any Children:
yes

Smoke:
Never

Drink:
occassionaly - Socially

Exercise:
yes

Spend Your Life On Facebook:
yes

Play On A Sports Team:
not really

Belong To Any Organizations:
yes

Love Your Job:
very much

Like To Cook:
yup

Play An Instrument:
Sax

Sing:
In Bathroom

Dance:
when high (with a couple of them in..)

Speak Multiple Languages:
yes

Ice Skate:
no - Inline mostly

Swim:
a little

Paint:
Watercolour

Write:
my life story

Ski:
want to

Juggle:
hmm - thats going on since a long time - with my life

Have You Ever
Stolen Anything:
heart

Been Drunk Before Noon:
carried forward of the earlier night - may be

Had Sex In A Public Place:
no - dream of

Got Caught Telling A Lie:
ya

Got A Speeding Ticket:
no

Been Arrested:
never

Littered:
no

Fantasized About A Co-Worker:
not yet

Cheated On A Test:
never

Cheated In A Relationship:
no

Failed A Class:
yes

Screened Your Phone Calls:
no

Eaten Food Off The Floor:
ya

Stuck Gum Under A Desk:
yup

Wished You Were Someone Else:
no

Cried During A Movie:
ya

Had A One Night Stand:
not yet

Other
Describe Yourself In One Word: happy
Biggest Fear: lose my appi
Biggest Mistake: many small ones
Your Proudest Accomplishment: Presidents Scout
#1 Priority In Your Life: My family
Dream Job: With a celebrity managing event across the world
Causes You Believe In: Live and let live
Special Talents: multiple
Where Are You Right Now: Dubai
Where Would You Rather Be: Home
Famous Person You Want To Meet:Richard Bronson
Place To Visit Before You Die: Himalayas
Song Played At Your Funeral: Ashi pakhare yeti - (marathi)

History of Advertising

Advertising as a discrete form is generally agreed to have begun with newspapers, in the seventeenth century, which included line or classified advertising. Simple descriptions, plus prices, of products served their purpose until the late nineteenth century, when technological advances meant that illustrations culd be added to advertising, and colour was also an option.
An early advertising success story is that of Pears Soap. Thomas Barratt married into the famous soap making family and realised that they needed to be more aggressive about pushing their products if they were to survive. He launched the series of ads featuring cherubic children which firmly welded the brand to the values it still holds today. he took images considered as "fine art" and used them to connote his brand's quality, purity (ie untainted by commercialism) and simplicity (cherubic children). He is often referred to as the father of modern advertising.

Profile of Barratt
Selection of ads
History of Bubbles
However, it was not until the emergence of advertising agencies in the latter part of the nineteenth century that advertising became a fully fledged institution, with its own ways of working, and with its own creative values. These agencies were a response to an increasingly crowded marketplace, where manufacturers were realising that promotion of their products was vital if they were to survive. They sold themselves as experts in communication to their clients - who were then left to get on with the business of manufacturing.
World War I saw some important advances in advertising as governments on all sides used ads as propaganda. The British used advertising as propaganda to convince its own citizens to fight, and also to persuade the Americans to join. No less a political commentator than Hitler concluded (in Mein Kampf) that Germany lost the war because it lost the propaganda battle: he did not make the same mistake when it was his turn. One of the other consequences of World War I was the increased mechanisation of industry - and hence increased costs which had to be paid for somehow: hence the desire to create need in the consumer which begins to dominate advertising from the 1920s onward.
Advertising quickly took advantage of the new mass media of the first part of the twentieth century, using cinema, and to a much greater extent, radio, to transmit commercial messages. You can listen to some early radio advertising here (RealPlayer req'd). This was beginning to show signs of working effectively in the 1920s but the Wall St crash put an end to widespread affluence, and the Great Depression and World War Two meant that it was not really until the 1950s that consumers had enough disposable income to really respond to the need creation message of advertisers.
The 1950s not only brought postwar affluence to the average citizen but whole new glut of material goods for which need had to be created. Not least of these was the television set. In America it quickly became the hottest consumer property - no home could be without one. And where the sets went, the advertisers followed, spilling fantasies about better living through buying across the hearthrug in millions of American homes. The UK and Europe, with government controlled broadcasting, were a decade or so behind America in allowing commercial TV stations to take to the air, and still have tighter controls on sponsorship and the amount of editorial control advertisers can have in a programme. This is the result of some notable scandals in the US, where sponsors interfered in the content and outcome of quiz shows in order to make their product seem, by association, more sexy. See the excellent Quiz Show (1994), directed by Robert Redford which deals with the disillusionment of the American people.
Unhappy with the ethical compromise of the single-sponsor show, NBC executive Sylvester Weaver came up with the idea of selling not whole shows to advertisers, but separate, small blocks of broadcast time. Several different advertisers could buy time within one show, and therefore the content of the show would move out of the control of a single advertiser - rather like a print magazine. This became known as the magazine concept, or participation advertising, as it allowed a whole variety of advertisers to access the audience of a single TV show. Thus the 'commercial break' as we know it was born.

Todays Advertising world.

What do consumers expect? They expect their car repairs to be done quickly, correctly and at a fair price. They also count on superior customer service, drop-off and pickup services, and some fresh coffee while they wait for assistance. Most importantly, today's consumer, who lives a time-crunched lifestyle, requires all aspects of their car repair experience to be convenient and hassle-free or else they won't be happy. How, then, do automotive service businesses effectively market their services to these harried, demanding consumers? According to Roper Starch Worldwide, a firm that conducts marketing, public opinion, advertising and media research in the United States and around the world, the answer is threefold: understand what motivates consumers, simplify life for them and solve their problems.
These consumer needs are expected to continue well into the next decade as baby boomers work more hours and commit more to family and community obligations, therefore creating severe time deficits for themselves. As a result, consumers will spend less time on comparing prices, use technology to reduce transaction time, and patronize businesses that make life easier. Already, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that computer expenditures will soar to $666 billion by 2006, as compared to 2.1 billion in 1986.
Top of MindThe ultimate goal of any marketing and advertising done by service businesses is to be "top-of-mind" of these busy consumers. This means that the name of your business (or your name) is the first thing that pops into their head when their vehicle needs maintenance or repair, or whenever they have an automotive-related concern. To get to this position, shops must understand their market and consumers' needs, have a consistent, ongoing advertising program and stay up-to-date with new advertising mediums, both traditional and non-traditional.
A 1998 AutoInc. study of shop advertising showed that 84 percent of the mechanical repair businesses that belong to the Automotive Service Association (ASA) advertise their businesses, while 83 percent of ASA collision repair businesses have an advertising program. For 1999, mechanical shops surveyed anticipated a budget of $17,446 for advertising and collision shops expected to spend an average of $21,558 on advertising in 1999.
Beyond word-of-mouth, the majority of mechanical shops surveyed use the Yellow Pages, followed in descending order by direct mail, newspaper, radio, the neighborhood shopper and the Internet. Those who listed the Internet as an advertising medium totaled 14 percent, up from the 1997 figure of 10 percent. Collision shops also overwhelmingly use the Yellow Pages, followed by radio, newspaper, the Internet and the local neighborhood shopper. For this segment, Internet advertising grew from 12 percent in 1997 to 16 percent in 1998.
Even though Yellow Pages are the most used advertising medium by ASA shops, their publisher - the Yellow Pages Publishers Association - recently announced a $24 million national advertising campaign to make Yellow Pages top-of-mind for consumers everywhere, and to increase usage by repositioning how consumers think about the Yellow Pages in the information age.
Internet AdvertisingAs the AutoInc. survey showed, more automotive service businesses are using Web sites on the Internet as a means to reach today's "connected" consumer. The Computer Industry Almanac reports that by the year 2000, 327 million people around the world will have Internet access. According to Roper Starch Worldwide, America has the fastest growing number of Internet users. As of early 1999, there were already more than 4.3 million Web sites, and experts predict that customers will increasingly turn to the World Wide Web for a sense of community between buyers and sellers, information suppliers and consumers, friends and family.
Some automotive service Web sites have sophisticated features including online appointment setting, online daily or hourly status reports and estimate forms. The Web site for Hillmuth Certified Automotive, Columbia, Md., (http://www.hillmuth.com) allows customers to make appointments online. According to Doug Hillmuth, co-owner, the site has been up for about eight months and is now starting to receive customer attention. "We are getting real positive responses from our clients and the appointment feature is now starting to take hold. Customers like the convenience of being able to make appointments for their vehicles as they research our services on the Web," said Hillmuth.
Other sites have customer testimonials and surveys, a frequently asked question section, staff and business credentials, employment opportunities, business philosophies, a variety of consumer tips and directions to the shop. "Undoubtedly, communication via the Internet will dramatically increase and will become a major marketing tool for both large and small businesses," said Bob Jones, owner of Quality Transmission Service, Inc., Tempe, Ariz. (http://www.quality-trans.com). "A Web site provides the ability for a business to expose themselves in far greater detail than any other means of advertising," said Jones.
It also opens your business to the world and this exposure may lead to a large number of visitors and inquiries. At the Salem Brothers Web site for the company's automotive repair business also in Tempe, Ariz., the counter that tracks visitors reads 221,993. A message on the site indicates that more than 100 e-mails are received daily from people asking for help on car repairs.
Another type of Internet advertising that some automotive businesses are starting to use is banner advertising. Many Web sites, such as sites for particular cities or areas, sell banner advertising. For example, a visit to the Web site for the City of Arlington, Texas, and its category of automotive repair shops not only gives visitors a list of businesses to choose from, it also runs a banner ad for Midas.
Non-traditional advertisingShops also report using a range of other less-traditional mediums for advertising including shopping carts, church bulletins, Little League team and golf tournament sponsorships, referral cards and Welcome Wagon participation. Although shops aren't likely to be too involved in what's called "out of home media," there is a growing onslaught of untraditional advertising where ad messages are showing up on virtually everything, from airport baggage carousels and cash machines to rental cars, floors, and even on apples, bananas, oranges and grapefruit in supermarkets. The basics
When creating an advertising message remember that 90 seconds is the maximum amount of time spent on any traditional ad. It's best to use only one idea or message at a time and to use brief, catchy headlines. If you're using print advertising, try to stick with a consistent appearance and type style. It's also important to remember that just about any aspect of your business is part of your overall advertising. This includes everything from parking, shop signage and customer services, to the appearance of waiting areas and employees, business cards, letterhead and the condition of the vehicle when it's returned to the customer.