Holbrook-cum-Levitt

My latest contretemps took place in the august pages of the Journal of Marketing. On the surface, it all looks civilised enough - I wrote a paper, Morris and Ted commented and I replied - but there's a lot more to it than that. About six months after the original paper appeared, the then editor Bob Lusch got in touch with me. He said the article had stirred up a lot of talk and that he was planning to invite Ted and Morris to comment. This they did and I submitted my reply. Straightforward enough, so far.

However, when the new editor, Dave Stewart, took up the reigns in July 1999
he reviewed the file and concluded that my rejoinder was too flippant for the Journal of Marketing. I can well understand his predicament - new editor, leading journal, lowering the tone etc. etc. - but his suggested solution was beyond belief. Namely, that Morris and Ted's comments should be published, without a reply - any reply - from the original author! As you can imagine, this caused a modicum of consternation on my part and, after a friendly e-mail or two (ahem), the editor relented and permitted me to publish a much toned-down rejoinder.

Naturally, I'm quite disappointed with the reply that eventually appeared in JM. Many of the best lines had to be excised, though in fairness to Dave Stewart, he let me get away with much more than I originally expected.

 For your amusement and delectation, here's a copy of my original rejoiner (actually,  there's also a first draft, which was much longer again, but I never submitted that to JM). Actually, while we're on the subject, you might be interested in my first draft of the Anxiety of Influence paper, the one that was sent to Morris for his original approval. As you can see, it hardly changed at all in the course of the review process,  with the exception of a substantial section which compared and contrasted two seminal publications by precursor and ephebe ('Marketing Myopia' and 'Loving and  Hating New York'). This was removed to keep the paper within the maximum permitted length specifications of the journal. Enjoy!