May 5, 2025
Tom Burrell, a renowned Black visionary who changed the face of the ad industry for African Americans, will receive an honorary degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign during the university-wide Commencement ceremony on May 17, 2025.
The honorary degree award recognizes individuals who have shown exemplary, extraordinary, and distinguished contributions to knowledge and creativity in a specific field, or sustained activity of uncommon merit.
The Charles H. Sandage Department of Advertising was the key sponsor of Burrell’s honorary degree, with three additional departments supporting his nomination, including the Department of African American Studies, the Marketing Group in the Department of Business Administration, and the Department of Communication.
Jason P. Chambers, professor of advertising and associate dean for access and engagement at the College of Media, describes Burrell as his “favorite person in the history of the [advertising] industry.”
Chambers wrote a book about Burrell last year: Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell (University of Illinois Press).
Tom Burrell is unquestionably a pioneer in the field of advertising. He helped to normalize the image of African Americans in advertising.
Jason P. Chambers
Advertising Professor and Author of Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell
“He started in advertising at a time in which the number of African Americans operating in a professional capacity could have been measured in the dozens,” Chambers said. “He is one of the people who is singularly responsible for helping to get African Americans on TV.”
Burrell’s career, first as a copywriter and then as an agency owner of the Burrell Communications Group, spans more than 40 years. He created an approach to advertising, “positive realism,” that is still utilized today in the field.
Burrell has been elected to the American Advertising Federation Hall of Fame, one of the industry’s highest honors. He also received the Albert Lasker Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advertising and the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism. In 2017, he became the first African American creative elected to the One Club Creative Hall of Fame.
Despite the many challenges he faced throughout his career, Chambers said Burrell provided an opening into advertising for African Americans who likely otherwise would not have found one, giving them a place to learn the business, to develop as professionals, and to be themselves.
“Tom Burrell is unquestionably a pioneer in the field of advertising,” Chambers said. “He helped to normalize the image of African Americans in advertising.”
The Sandage Department of Advertising will host a luncheon for students and faculty to meet Burrell while he is on campus.
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