Robert F. Lauterborn is the James L. Knight Professor of Advertising in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a distinguished chair made possible by a million-dollar grant from the Knight Foundation "to improve the teaching of advertising."

Professor Lauterborn is widely recognized as an influential figure in the study of advertising. In 1999, he was presented with the G. D. Crain, Jr. Award (named after the founder of Advertising Age) for "lifetime contributions to the development and improvement of business marketing," and inducted into the Business Marketing Hall of Fame.

Professor Lauterborn is perhaps best known as one of the pioneers of Integrated Marketing Communication. He co-authored the best-selling book "Integrated Marketing Communication: Pulling It Together And Making It Work" (NTC,1993), which has been translated into thirteen languages, and a second book titled "The New Marketing Paradigm." In a 2001 survey among U.S. academics and agency and client-side practitioners, the IMC book was ranked 14th all-time among books influencing the study of advertising, and number one among books written since 1986.

In addition, Professor Lauterborn is a principal in Morgan Anderson Consulting, a marketing communications management consulting firm located in New York, and a marketing advisory board member of Aprimo, a marketing management software company. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was the Director of Marketing Communication & Corporate Advertising for International Paper, a global company which now generates $25 billion in sales annually. He also spent 16 years with General Electric in marketing and corporate communications management.

Professor Lauterborn draws upon his vast industry expertise and wealth of teaching experience to engage and empower business marketing students in the classroom. In 2004, he was named "Advertising Educator of the Year" by Advertising Club of the Triangle ( Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina). The organization also created a scholarship in his name.

Professor Lauterborn has been invited to teach in over a dozen countries, including Australia, China, Brazil, Germany, Monaco, Norway, Colombia, Sweden, Italy, New Zealand, France, Canada, and England. Over the past dozen years, he has also consulted to or conducted seminars and workshops for more than 50 organizations in 19 countries on five continents, including IBM, General Motors, ExxonMobil, HP, Monsanto, AT&T, Bank of America, Kellogg's, and Philips.

Always active in the industry, Professor Lauterborn has been vice chairman of the Association of National Advertisers, as well as chairman of the Business Marketing Association International and the Business Advertising Research Council. He has also served as a board member of many other industry organizations, such as the Advertising Research Foundation.