Mayar Magdy Omar

Ahmed Taher Interview

Interview Transcript

Interviewer:

Mayar Magdy Omar

ID number:

900140339

Narrator:

Ahmed Taher

Date:

24/10/2016

Location:

JAMEEL Hall P049

University:

American University in Cairo

Professor:

Kim Fox

Project completed:

26/10/2016

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Mayar Magdy Omar

Ahmed Taher Interview

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Omar: Good Morning, my name is Mayar Magdy, I'm conducting this interview in P049, Jameel
Hall AUC. Can you please introduce yourself?

Taher: Doctor Ahmed Taher, professor marketing and the school of GAAP, Journalism and Mass
Communication.

Omar: I have done some research about your career on AUC's website and I have a question,
why did you switch careers from yaani being a Civil Engineer to Advertising and marketing?

Taher: umm... there's something, there's a lot in between, I switched from civil engineering to
business first and then from business to marketing and them from marketing to advertising, it's
normal to switch career once you feel there is a good reason for that and uh, when I switched
from engineering to business aa.. aa.. the reason was a... the opportunity that I had was to
manage my dad's business, so I decided to study business rather than just go because my dad
owns the business and become top of the management and then business, uh.. when I switched to
management uh.. I got into.. I started teaching at the AUC very early on, that was in 1986 and.. I
liked it very much so I decided to peruse a career in consultancy and as a professor and so.. I got
my PhD this time in marketing so that's the second switch, when I switched to marketing I taught
marketing for 20 years from uhh... or actually for about 18 years from 96 until uh..2007 or 8 so
yeah.. 20 years and then.. umm.. I took a break sort of sabbatical for six years or so and then I
came back again to teaching.. so this time I decided to peruse something different and
uh..Masscom it was.

Omar: Okay.. tayeb do you think social media has positive impact on advertising and boosts the
awareness of the products?

Taher: absolutely.. Social has changed everything... it has changed the way we do marketing, the
way we do advertising.. the way we communicate with people umm.. We used to communicate
aa..one to many, now it is many to many so that's a very simple terms what the social media has
done.. the communication now is many to many, it used to be one to many uhh... it its changed
and forever.

Omar: From your perspective do you think social media is trend or is it staying forever.. and
why?

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Ahmed Taher Interview

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Taher: you couldn't.. you couldn't (laugh).. you know the future is very difficult to predict and..
the future is now you know you couldn't even predict what even will happen fi..five years from
today the technology is changing again and again and again but I think that human beings have
found aa..aa a very different world a new world they were not aware of that was not possible
before the technology in the social media, the people have taken a lot of power back in their our
hands in terms of communication uh.. the people who ..have very little means and very little
experience are now able to communicate to hundreds, and then have thousands of followers, and
then millions of followers.. they can impact the the future of other people and nations in the
world.

Omar: tayeb.. what do you think about the businesses who use Celebrities, bloggers, famous
people in advertising? Do you think it's a negative or positive approach?

Taher: anything in this world negatively or positively uh.. the use of celebrity can be used very
positively to uh.. to support causes.. social causes and so on, and it can be used positively to
advertise uhh.. Products and link it to the projects, it can also be used negatively to promote
useless products or whatever.. what is ethical or non-ethical is the the cause or the product its not
the use of the celebrity, the use of celebrity is neutral just like the use of knifes you can use a
knife to do a lot of great things and cook and so on and you can use a knife to kill someone. uhh..
the use of celebrity is neutral what is ethical or non-ethical is the cause for which it is used.

Omar: tayeb.. Which social media platforms do you prefer in advertising?

Taher: umm.. they all uh.. are changing rapidly and they are all aa.. in essence they are merging
so.. uh..uh. Facebook start as one thing today Facebook is different, twitter start as one thing
today twitter is different. They are all evolving and changing sometimes they are begging
borrowing and stealing formats from each other and at the end of the day they all complement
one another, I don't think that anyone single social media will stand as (zee) social media that we
have to use. I think they all complement each other, some people prefer visuals, some people
prefer texts, some people prefer audio and so we will always have the..the..the.. Mix of social
media aa.. Venues and that's all very positive in a sense.

Omar: Alright, that was an interview about social media and advertising. Thank you so much
doctor Ahmed for your time.

Taher: Thank you so much.

Mayar Magdy Omar

Ahmed Taher Interview

*Arabic words used for flow in speaking, meaning like of and Ok, Fine

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