From the editor.

I am using this column to update readers on the state of the Journal As noted in my Summer 2004 "From the Editor" column, tradition suggests that I provide an update of the Journal's status in the Summer issue each year.

The Journal and our printer, M.E. Sharpe, continue to partner

well--we managed to print all the 2004 issues on schedule, and it is our hope that you received your copies in a timely fashion. I thank all our collaborators at M.E. Sharpe: Harry Briggs, Debra E. Soled, Sorina Kyriazis, and Elizabeth Granda--for their patience and support. It has been a pleasure working with them. Moreover, I offer my thanks to the American Academy of Advertising's Executive Committee and Publications Committee for their support and encouragement. Finally, please join me in thanking Larisa Vereshchagina for her two years of service as the Journal's editorial assistant (EA). I welcome Nikki Reed as our new EA--we look forward to working with her in the future.

The year 2004 proved to be a monumental one for the Journal of Advertising. Including the 59 papers that were sent to Ray Taylor's special issue on international advertising, the Journal received a total of 181 submissions for the year. With revisions, we processed in excess of 250 manuscripts during the 2004 calendar year. I am pleased to report that we published a total of 26 papers, which yielded an overall acceptance rate of 14%. This relatively low acceptance rate may seem to suggest that our standards for accepting manuscripts are growing more stringent, but I believe that it more accurately reflects an increased interest by potential authors in the Journal Submissions are arriving from all parts of the world, and they are coming from many new and different people. Not only are submissions coming from scholars in advertising and marketing departments as they traditionally have; they are also being generated by individuals in economics, communications, psychology, management, and other tangentially related disciplines. Indeed, it seems that the appeal of the Journal is broadening.

We did encounter some minor setbacks last year, the most notable of which had to do with turnaround time. For 2004, our average turnaround time for manuscripts slowed to about 80 days (up from approximately 40 days). While I can attribute the cause of this change to any number of significant occurrences (i.e., Larisa's maternity leave, the change in EA, the increased number of submissions, etc.), this number clearly suggests that we need to improve the review process in 2005. To help the situation, I plan to add at least 5 other members to the Editorial Review Board this year, and intend to increase our pool of ad hoc reviewers by at least 10 individuals. If you are not currently reviewing for the Journal and wish to do so, please let Nikki or me know.

The following papers were nominated for the 2004 Best Article award:

* "How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics," by Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy

* "Congruence Effects in Sponsorship: The Mediating Role of Sponsor Credibility and Consumer Attributions of Sponsor Motives," by Nora J. Rifon, Sejung Marina Choi, Carrie S. Trimble, and Hairong Li

* "Imagine Yourself in the Product: Mental Simulation, Narrative Transportation, and Persuasion," by Jennifer Edson Escalas

* "A Theory-Based Approach for Improving Demand Artifact Assessment in Advertising Experiments," by Chris T. Allen

I congratulate the authors of each of these papers. I believe we published the highest quality papers related to advertising in 2004; thus, to be nominated for the Best Article award puts you in a truly honorable position. Moreover, I offer special congratulations to Minette Drumwright and Patrick Murphy--their paper won the Best Article award.

Finally, it is important to thank all of you who have graciously shared your time and reviewed manuscripts for the Journal While it is virtually impossible to pick out the best reviewers, I do try to recognize the work of several people each year who excel in reviewing. Please join me in recognizing the stellar review work of four individuals:

* James Leigh (Texas A&M University)

* Cristel Russell (San Diego State University)

* Andrew Aylesworth (Bentley College)

* Sanjay Putrevu (Bryant College)

Because of their outstanding contributions, I have asked Cristel, Andy, and Sanjay to join Jim Leigh (and the rest of the current members) on the Editorial Review Board.

Thanks to all of you for your continued support. I am certain that 2005 will be an outstanding year. We plan to publish two special issues (one that deals with integrated marketing communication and the other with the audience marketplace), and in this issue, the Journal features the first of a series of "state-of-the-art" invited papers. In the meantime, if you have suggestions for improvement of the Journal, do not hesitate to contact me. Our goal is to maintain, and if possible, improve the stature of the Journal Your input is critical if we are to accomplish this objective.

Russell N. Laczniak

Iowa State University