Karen King appointed president of the American Academy of Advertising

Karen Whitehill King, a Jim Kennedy New Media Professor and professor of advertising, has been appointed president of the American Academy of Advertising.

“I am honored to serve as President of the American Academy of Advertising,” King said. “Members of the AAA are scholars and professionals interested in research and education in the advertising field. Many of us think of this organization as our academic and professional home.”

AAA’s mission is to be the home base for advertising scholars when it comes to academic growth, knowledge generation, global insight, networking and the shared mission of educating the next generation. The organization has many goals, including to emphasize the value of professional education for advertising, to coordinate efforts to advance advertising education and to develop closer liaison between academic disciplines.

To accomplish these goals, AAA unites its many diverse members to foster advertising research and to share their personal ideas and insights. The Academy then shares all of its findings to the advertising profession and to advertising educational programs. The AAA organization started in 1958 and now has more than 600 members.

King has a notable history within AAA. In 2015, King was the recipient of the Charles H. Sandage Award for Teaching Excellence. This is a national award given by the American Academy of Advertising to recognize outstanding contributions to advertising teaching. She was also the editor of the 1994 Proceedings of the AAA Conference.

At UGA, King teaches advertising media planning, advertising campaigns and advertising research and focuses her research on advertising industry issues and health communication. She has published much of her work in leading academic journals and she has presented her work at numerous advertising, marketing and mass communication academic conferences.

Prior to joining the Grady College, King worked as a media buyer/planner and a research supervisor at Foote, Cone, and Belding Communications, Inc. in Chicago. King is also the co-author of three editions of Kleppner’s “Advertising Procedure,” a leading advertising textbook and “The Media Buying Simulation” textbook supplement.

At UGA, she has participated in the Lilly Teaching Fellows program and is a Meigs recipient, UGA’s highest teaching honor. She has been recognized for her work with UGA’s Ad Club and campaign competition team, being named the Donald G. Hileman Educator of the Year by the American Advertising Federation’s Seventh District in 1999. In September 2001, King was nominated to UGA’s Teaching Academy, which recognizes and promotes teaching excellence.

King succeeds Tom Reichert, former AdPR department head and current dean of the College of Information and Communications at the University of South Carolina, as AAA president.