Scot Burton, distinguished professor and holder of the Tyson Chair in Food and Consumer Products Retailing in the Department of Marketing at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, has been awarded the 2020 American Marketing Association's Marketing and Society Special Interest Group Lifetime Achievement Award.

Chris Berry, an assistant professor of marketing at Colorado State University who received his Ph.D. from the Walton College in 2017, was named by the Marketing and Society Special Interest Group of the AMA as the emerging scholar for 2020. The two awards were announced at the Marketing and Public Policy Conference online on May 29.

The AMA said lifetime achievement award recipients such as Burton "make a significant contribution to research advancing the study of marketing and societal issues throughout their career with research that demonstrates significance, innovation and methodological rigor and substantively has advanced our understanding of issues of importance to our society."

Burton has authored and co-authored more than 100 journal articles and 100 conference proceedings, almost all addressing important topics in marketing and public policy. "He is arguably the leading expert on nutritional labeling in the world based on his prolific research record in this area, including major articles on front-of-pack labeling, nutritional claims, nutrition facts panels and restaurant caloric labeling," the AMA announcement said.

In addition to numerous other awards, Burton received the Thomas C. Kinnear Journal of Public Policy & Marketing Award for outstanding article in 2012 and 2013 and has won outstanding article awards from the Journal of Advertising and the Journal of Consumer Affairs. In 2000, he was recognized as being one of the top 25 researchers in the marketing discipline in six prestigious marketing journals.

Berry, who was selected as the emerging scholar for his rigorous scholarship which focuses on the regulatory effects of warnings, labeling, corrective advertising and health claims and disclosures for e-cigarettes and their impact on the consumer, was a student who worked with Burton at the U of A.

The AMA announcement said that Burton's research has made a significant impact on public policy, being used as a guide by the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Nutrition and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Food Forum.

"Professor Burton's research on e-cigarette and cigarette health warnings, food deserts, sustainability, pathological gambling and alcohol warnings also has made important contributions to the public policy field," the announcement said.