Long-time Texas Advertising professor retires, ranks as most-cited internet advertising researcher

UT Advertising professor John Leckenby earned top rankings in a study evaluating internet advertising research based on the number of times an author is cited. This news comes as the UT veteran prepares for retirement at the end of the Spring 2008 semester.

Industry Research Leader

The study, "Evaluation of Internet Advertising Research: A Bibliometric Analysis of Citations from Key Sources," was conducted by Juran Kim and Sally J. McMillan and ranked Leckenby as the second most-cited author of internet advertising research papers when citations were weighted for order of authority, and first when weightings are not done.

Leckenby reports that this is not the first time he has been recognized as a top researcher. A former doctoral student of his from UT-Austin, Steve Edwards, conducted a study with his wife a few years ago that indicated Dr. Leckenby's name appeared on more research papers, special topic sessions and program mentions than any other person in the over twenty-year period they studied.

UT Impact

With over 40 years of teaching, research and industry experience, over 20 of those at UT-Austin, Dr. Leckenby will be leaving a big footprint. He reports that his favorite part of working at UT was, "Having the ability, since we are a large Department, of working with so many graduate students, especially doctoral students." Dr. Leckenby's personal website reports that he has supervised 19 Ph.D. dissertations and 35 masters thesis during his teaching career. He also taught the first interactive advertising course at UT in 1995.

Dr. Leckenby knew without question what his favorite research topic has been throughout the years, "... basic media model research dealing with the application of probability theory to the estimation of reach and frequency for media schedules. It has also been challenging as well as exciting to apply these old concepts to the new environment of interactive media."

He also gave insight to what he thought was one of the most interesting issues in the industry. "An important issue is the job which needs to be done to make a logical connection between the traditional media and the new media. Digital out-of-home and other related new media outlets raise particularly important questions which tomorrow's scholars and practitioners must answer-and quickly. Online social networking is extremely complicated but deserves more study and understanding than we currently possess since advertising will inevitably become a foundation block in sites and media which make use of it."

After retiring, Dr. Leckenby plans to do some traveling, particularly in Mexico.

Recommendation to Students

Dr. Leckenby has an interesting recommend to current students of advertising: "As advertising and related fields are known to be highly competitive industries, it may be difficult but best in the long run to be concerned about one's own growth and try to avoid thinking about the progress or defeat of those with whom one is competing. There is always someone who gets something we really wanted in our professional life but never obtained. It is best to be positive and concentrate on nurturing one's own talents. I have known very few geniuses over the past 40 years of teaching and researching in great universities, but I have known many hard-working people of good intelligence who have become highly successful in their subsequent careers."

4/16/2008