AdPR doctoral students earn awards and recognition

Congratulations to Ho Joon Choi and Eun Sook Kwon, two doctoral students in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations who earned recognition for outstanding research conducted in the graduate program.

Hojoon Choi

Hojoon Choi was awarded the Len Reid Graduate Student Research Award. The award, established by the AdPR Department to honor long-time, award-winning educator and researcher Dr. Leonard Reid, recognizes research excellence in graduate education. "Dr." Choi -- (he received his doctorate in May) -- will begin his career as an assistant professor at the University of Houston.

Eun Sook Kwon

Eun Sook Kwon is the first recipient of the Dean Krugman Graduate Student Travel Award. She earned a Delta Airlines ticket to attend the American Academy of Advertising Global Conference, held from May 31 to June 1, in Honolulu, Hawaii. “It is a honor to be the first recipient. It is a new award for graduate students bestowed this year and I was surprised and touched by the support of our department,” said Kwon. The award was established in Krugman's honor. He is a long-time educator, scholar and administrator at the University of Georgia.

Both Drs. Reid and Krugman, emeritus professors in the department, remain actively involved with students and scholarship.

AdPR well represented at American Academy of Advertising's Hawaiian conference

Dr. Kim and AdPR doctoral students in Honolulu, Hawaii

Dr. Joo Young Kim, Associate Professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations, along with AdPR doctoral students Eun Sook Kwon and Kuan-Ju Chen, attended the The American Academy of Advertising Global Conference, held from May 31 to June 1, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The conference's theme was “Going Digital? Opportunities and Challenges of New Media and Non-Traditional Marketing Communications in a Globally-Connected World.” The AAA conference was sponsored by the Shidler College of Business and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. 

The event was well attended and served as an important forum for intellectual exchange and collaboration among advertising scholars, educators, and practitioners from around the world. “The presence of the UGA team composed of Eunsook, Kuan-Ju and me had certainly demonstrated the world-class strength of our advertising program. I really enjoyed the conference program which was full of scholarly insights we could use in our research and teaching, particularly in my Global and Multicultural Advertising class in the fall,” said Dr. Kim.

UGA doctoral student publishes brand Twitter analysis in Journal of Interactive Advertising

Congratulations to new Grady Advertising doctoral student Eun Sook Kwon for having her article "Follow Me! Global Marketers' Twitter Use" published in the Journal of Interactive Advertising. Eun Sook Kwon and Dr. Yung Jin Sung (University of Texas at Austin), a Grady Advertising doctoral alum, explored how social media have grown into powerful marketing communications tools in the global economy.

Kwon and Sung undertook a content-analysis of the Twitter use of 44 different brands including Starbucks, BlackBerry, MTV, Coca-Cola, Nokia, and McDonalds. They found that marketers try to introduce human personality characteristics into their brands by using human representatives, personal pronouns, and verbs in the imperative form. The analysis also showed that information like brand names and redirecting cues frequently appear in tweets for these brands. Overall, the researchers discoverd that marketers tend to exhibit brand presence and personality through their Twitter accounts, which allows them to build relationships with current and potential consumers.

Read the full article here.