About Aida Al Busaidy, Associate Vice President of Consumer Advocacy, Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism

Aida Al Busaidy is currently the Associate Vice President of Consumer Advocacy at Dubai Economy & Tourism where she has served multiple roles and handled various tasks in the past decade. 

Aida has carved a path as one of the highest profile Emirati communicators for the past 2 decades covering a spectrum of communications roles from tv presenting, to international communications, digital ecosystems and most of all strategic planning to push messaging through key opinion leaders. She’s held roles across semi-government, government and private sector managing a range of stakeholders, structuring teams and managing multi-million AED budgets across a plethora of programs that help drive awareness, change perceptions and ultimately drive conversion for the businesses. Some of her notable projects include working with the legendary Hans Zimmer (2022 – 2023), creating the school program for Masdar – the energy company (2010 – 2013) amongst several others. Currently she serves on multiple advisory boards and SME businesses to structure their communications and is heavily focused on social and online marketing with a targeted PR / Social & Digital Platforms and Consumer to Consumer approach. 

Aida has contributed as a Master of Ceremonies for over 15 years to various high profile events as well as played an integral role in the TV and radio world locally. 

On a personal level – Aida is the co founder of two start ups and is heavily active within the society serving the youth and women empowerment programs, as well as an avid fitness lover and Padel Tennis player. 

Her most important role though is being mother two 2 boys Daeej (10) and Zayed (8) in addition to playing an active role in her childrens school and overall academic and cultural contribution.

About her thoughts for the industry 

The communications and marketing industry is definitely one of the most versatile places you can choose to be in. If I were to look at myself as an example, advocate and advisor to the communications and marketing world, I studied journalism with a minor in advertising and English literature, worked in a PR agency whilst being a columnist and then part time TV presenter, to running internal communications to working on mega global marketing projects from movies to music videos to working with celebrities and key opinion leaders and influencers; I’d say the shift is varied and all encompassing.

The variety of jobs and growth potential is also extremely high and coupled with the right personality traits, you could possess more than one avenue to reach your audience with the right messaging. So a few of my humble thoughts and reflections for the year include:

  1. As we become more connected, we will also be looking for more unique / niche content from niche communities and platforms so think TIKTOK for the masses but the FYP pages are tailormade for you and cater to a specific topic(s) that you can consumer and make a decision on.
  2. We are so consumed by visuals and while video consumption won’t die down, better yet it will increase, audio content such as podcasts will become popular (think of the excitement when radio was first created)
  3. UGC will become a key factor in decision making as well, the more personal, the more you can interact with it and better yet when that UGC is done by someone who has a long term partnership with a brand. Gone are the days when you would just pose for 10 different brands over 5 days to just sell sell sell, it’s what you are selling and do you have an affinity with the brand
  4. AI and ChatGPT ! I mean you can’t miss that and if you haven’t used it, question is why not?
  5. Being real and talking the talk – we are so accustomed to the sugar coated and polished versions of things, but realism, comic relief, honesty will be a big part of marketing