Auburn University marketing professor named fellow by American Academy of Advertising

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Auburn University Alumni Professor Herbert Jack Rotfeld has been named a fellow by the American Academy of Advertising. The award recognizes an individual's lifetime achievement in the advancement of advertising scholarship, as well as advertising education and service to the academic discipline.

"I know of no one who has rendered more quality service to our field," H. Keith Hunt, professor emeritus in business management at Brigham Young University, wrote of Rotfeld.

Rotfeld coined the phrase "misplaced marketing" and turned it into a well-received, scholarly book. His essays and commentaries in journals and business magazines on advertising practice and consumer views are some of the most respected in the discipline. His decade-long service as editor of the Journal of Consumer Affairs is widely acknowledged. But his dedication to the American Academy of Advertising – leading in a variety of capacities, including terms as president, treasurer and publications committee chair, plus serving on many committees spanning his 40 years of membership – is revered by its members.

"This is a great honor and I still don't believe it actually happened," said Rotfeld, who first joined Auburn's Raymond J. Harbert College of Business faculty in 1988, having taught more than 5,000 students over the years.

"Prior to the awards luncheon, many people came up to tell me of conversations they had about me during the prior day and morning of the conference: constant praise of how I was an influence that I never knew or realized," Rotfeld said.

Rotfeld's authored book, "Adventures in Misplaced Marketing," in 2001, is a collection of analysis and case examples from his research, dealing with the realities of marketing and its limitations, including a chapter on the real reason for bad advertising.

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