Purpose:

The objective of this paper is to explore the dominating approaches that appear in top marketing journals.

Design/methodology/approach:

This research is restricted to the exploration of one top journal in marketing. The journal title is kept anonymous as the topic goes beyond the targeted journal and aspires to be of interest to the marketing discipline and its research community. A triangular approach was used, which was divided into two parts.

Findings:

Part one - the exploration of the editorial descriptions of selected top marketing journals shows that they tend to describe their published articles according to some key features.

Part two - the content analysis of 151 articles generated an extremely skewed outcome. It appears to be almost a pre-requisite to have applied quantitative approaches in order to make it successfully through the blind review process and get published in the targeted journal.

Research limitations/implications:

This research is limited to explore one of the top marketing journals. The journal is kept anonymous as the idea is not to question or hang out a specific journal, but rather to stimulate the debate of current approaches published in the top marketing journals. Practical implications: The exploration of the top marketing journal shows a stereotype and myopic view of what is classified as "high quality" or "appropriate" research approaches. The editors and the editorial boards should let paradigmatic and dogmatic research myopia stand back in favour of broadminded and challenging research efforts. They should strive to avoid traditionalism and blinkers.

Originality/value:

An increased trust and acceptability of other approaches than quantitative ones in top marketing journals would be desirable. A humble request would be to give other approaches a fair chance to get into the arena of top marketing journals. The paper contends that there may be a fatal "paradoxnoia" of top journal(s) in marketing - a "paradoxnoia" of approaches that may harm and undermine the respectability of the marketing discipline and its research community. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.