| name | jppm-literature-positioning |
| description | Use when situating a Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M) manuscript against both the marketing-and-policy literature and the regulatory record, and defending the JPP&M lane against siblings. Positions the contribution; it does not build the framework (jppm-theory-development) or design studies (jppm-methods). |
Literature Positioning (jppm-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- The front end cites consumer-behavior classics but no marketing-and-public-policy work
- A reviewer could say "JPP&M has run this conversation for twenty years — where are you in it?"
- The paper ignores what regulators have already mandated, studied, or litigated
- The gap statement reads "little research has examined…" with no stakes attached
- You need to defend why this is JPP&M rather than JCP, JM, or a policy journal
Position within two literatures and one record
A JPP&M paper answers to three bodies of prior work, and weak submissions engage only the first:
- The marketing-and-policy canon. JPP&M has cumulative research streams — warning labels and risk communication (Bettman, Payne, and Staelin 1986; Stewart and Martin 1994), nutrition labeling (Moorman 1996), social marketing (Andreasen 2002), privacy self-regulation (Culnan 2000), food marketing and obesity (Seiders and Petty 2004). Reviewers are the people who wrote these streams; entering the conversation without them reads as outsider work. See
resources/exemplars/library.md.
- The home-discipline literature for your mechanism or method — consumer research for the behavioral pathway, economics for the evaluation design.
- The regulatory record. Rules, guidance, enforcement actions, agency reports (FTC staff reports, FDA rulemakings, CFPB studies), and comment-period controversies are citable prior work at this journal. Positioning against the record shows the question is live and locates exactly what the agency does not yet know.
The gap that lands is a decision-relevant unknown: an agency must choose X or Y, and the literature cannot tell it which. "No one has studied Z" is only a gap if someone needs Z.
Staking the JPP&M lane against siblings
| Sibling | Overlap | One-sentence differentiation |
|---|
| JCP / JCR | consumer experiments on labels, privacy, health | "Our headline is what the agency should mandate, not which mental process drives the response." |
| JM / JMR | marketing effectiveness, field data | "The stakeholder is the regulator and the outcome is consumer welfare, not firm performance." |
| Journal of Consumer Affairs | consumer protection, financial well-being | "We center the marketing system and the regulatory instrument, not consumer education alone." |
| Journal of Macromarketing | markets-and-society critique | "We evaluate a specific actionable lever rather than the system-level critique." |
| JPAM / policy journals | program evaluation | "The marketing side of the exchange — firm response, persuasion, consumer inference — is the analytic core." |
Building the positioning argument
- Map the stream, then claim the bend. Show where the JPP&M conversation currently stands (what formats/instruments are established) and state precisely what your paper bends: a boundary, a contradiction, a newly regulable margin.
- Cite the agency as an interlocutor. "The FTC's Green Guides currently advise…; our evidence speaks to the revision now under comment" is stronger positioning than ten academic citations.
- Name the closest prior paper and its decision gap — what it could not tell a policymaker that yours can.
- Bridge disciplines explicitly. If the design imports econometric evaluation tools, connect them to the marketing question so neither reviewer camp feels ignored.
- Date-stamp the debate. Policy conversations move; anchor to the current statute/rulemaking status as of writing, and note it may shift in review.
Checklist
Anti-patterns
- Canon blindness: framing warning-label or privacy work as if JPP&M had never touched it
- Record blindness: proposing "regulators should require X" when a rule already requires X
- Stakes-free gap: "little research has examined…" with no one who needs the answer
- Discipline monologue: pure consumer-psych positioning that concedes the paper belongs at JCP
- Strawman agency: caricaturing current policy to inflate the paper's corrective value
Output format
【Stream】the JPP&M conversation and where it stands
【Record】the rule/report/enforcement status the paper speaks to (date-stamped)
【Gap】the decision-relevant unknown, and who needs it
【Closest prior paper】citation + the decision it could not inform
【Sibling defense】one line each vs. JCP/JCR, JM, JCA, policy journals
【Next skill】jppm-methods
