Editorial

Citation

Zahay, D. (2016), "Editorial", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 10 No. 4, pp. 266-267. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-08-2016-0078

Happy tenth anniversary JRIM!

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing (JRIM) and my fifth year as editor. We had a wonderful celebration of the Journal in Orlando at the Academy of Marketing Science Conference (AMS) with several members of our Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) and honored guests. This issue of the Journal highlights the work of the EAB. The EAB has played a key role in the expansion of our journal, as have conferences such as AMS, Marketing Management Association, the American Marketing Association, ACRA and the Marketing EDGE Direct Interactive Marketing Research Summit. These conferences have generously allowed us time on their programs to highlight the work of the Journal and invite people to contribute their work and review our manuscripts.

In the past five years, we have grown from receiving 50 manuscripts a year to a projected 100+ this year. Our acceptance rate overall has averaged 25-30 per cent and downloads have increased dramatically. JRIM has a strong EAB, is in line to receive an SSCI impact factor and is increasing in downloads and citations. It has really been a pleasure to help so many talented authors get their work published in this growing field.

However, as all good things must come to an end, I am stepping down as Editor-in-Chief at the end of 2017. My first five years in the position have flown by and been quite rewarding, but I think that someone else can take our successful journal to the next level. Professionally, I have moved on to a Department Chair role at St. Edward’s University and have been working to infuse Digital Marketing throughout the entire curriculum and hiring new faculty to help us with this transition. Many more curriculum changes lie ahead, and I want to focus on building these programs for the future and supporting our faculty and, of course, our students.

My own research agenda is taking precedence again, and I want to transfer what I have learned from being an editor into my own writing. I strongly recommend this work as a great way to contribute to the profession, keep up-to-date in our field and hone one’s writing and editing skills. Interested candidates for this position have the chance to work along-side me as the current Editor as Co-Editor from March 2017 onwards to facilitate a smooth transition. The new Editor-in-Chief will start in January of 2018. The Co-Editor will have a chance to edit a special issue and represent the journal at conferences and professional organizations. Qualified applicants with a sincere interest should contact Melissa Fojt, Publisher at mcfojt@emeraldinsight.com

Until then, I will continue to enjoy editing JRIM and working with our wonderful group of EAB members, authors and reviewers. I wanted to particularly thank everyone at Emerald over the years for their support and encouragement. We have a wonderful editorial team, too numerous to mention, that has always been there to support our efforts.

Finally, for our final issue of this year, each article highlights the work of an advisory board member. James Peltier, Sy Bannerjee, Lauren Labreque, Kesha Coker and Merlin Stone and their distinguished co-authors bring us leading-edge work on the following topics:

• social media customer engagement measurement;

• dual consciousness of consumers in the offline/online world;

• parasocial interactions in social media;

• disclosure of sponsorship in social shopping; and

• how interactive marketing is changing financial services.

Each of these articles addresses a new and exciting topic and brings with it the possibility for a full research agenda from the work. I hope that future authors reading these works are inspired to contribute to our journal. Enjoy this special issue and the work of our talented EAB.