The marketing mix (4 Ps) is the set of controllable elements or variables that a company uses to influence and meet the needs of its target customers in the most effective and efficient way possible. These variables are often grouped into four key components, often referred to as the "Four Ps of Marketing."

These four P's are:

  • Product: This represents the physical or intangible offering that a company provides to its customers. It includes the design, features, quality, packaging, branding, and any additional services or warranties associated with the product.
  • Price: Price refers to the amount of money customers are willing to pay for the product or service. Setting the right price is crucial, as it not only affects the company's profitability but also influences consumer perception and purchasing decisions.
  • Place (Distribution): Place involves the strategies and channels used to make the product or service accessible to the target market. It encompasses decisions related to distribution channels, retail locations, online platforms, and logistics.
  • Promotion: Promotion encompasses all the activities a company undertakes to communicate the value of its product or service to the target audience. This includes advertising, sales promotions, public relations, social media marketing, and any other methods used to create awareness and generate interest in the offering. The marketing mix has been defined as the "set of marketing tools that the firm uses to pursue its marketing objectives in the target market".

Marketing theory emerged in the early twenty-first century. The contemporary marketing mix which has become the dominant framework for marketing management decisions was first published in 1984. In services marketing, an extended marketing mix is used, typically comprising 7 Ps (product, price, promotion, place, people, process, physical evidence), made up of the original 4 Ps extended by process, people and physical evidence. Occasionally service marketers will refer to 8 Ps (product, price, place, promotion, people, positioning, packaging, and performance), comprising these 7 Ps plus performance.

In the 1970's Professor Koichi Shimizu proposed the 4 Cs (commodity, cost, channel, and communication). A newer 4 Cs model emerged in the 1990's as a more customer-driven replacement of the 4 Ps created by Professor Robert Lauterborn, consisting of the 4 Cs (consumer, cost, convenience, and communication).

The correct arrangement of marketing mix by enterprise marketing managers plays an important role in the success of a company's marketing:

  1. Develop strengths and avoid weaknesses
  2. Strengthen the competitiveness and adaptability of enterprises
  3. Ensure the internal departments of the enterprise work closely together

Emergence and growth

The origins of the 4 Ps can be traced to the late 1940s. The first known mention of a mix has been attributed to a Professor of Marketing at Harvard University, James Culliton. In 1948, Culliton published an article entitled The Management of Marketing Costs, in which he describes marketers as "mixers of ingredients". Years later, Culliton's colleague, Professor Neil Borden, published a retrospective article detailing the early history of the marketing mix in which he claims that he was inspired by Culliton's idea of "mixers", and credits himself with popularising the concept of the "marketing mix". According to Borden's account, he used the term "marketing mix" consistently from the late 1940s: for instance, he is known to have used the term "marketing mix" in his presidential address given to the American Marketing Association (AMA) in 1953. Borden did not define the mix, seeing the idea simply as a composition of "the important elements of ingredients" of a marketing programme.

thumb|Marketing mix diagram

Although the idea of marketers as "mixers of ingredients" caught on, marketers could not reach any real consensus about what elements should be included in the mix until the 1960s. Early schemas to define "mix" include:

  • John Howard's 1957 definition of four groups: product, price, channel, and promotion;
  • Albert Frey's 1961 distinction between the "offering" (product, brand, and price) and the "methods and tools" such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, distribution channels, marketing research, and strategy; and
  • Lazer and Kelly's 1962 model, which distinguished between the goods mix (product, brand, and price), the distribution mix (channels and physical distribution), and the communication mix (advertising and sales).

The 4 Ps, in its modern form, was first proposed in 1960 by E. Jerome McCarthy, who presented them within a managerial approach that covered analysis, consumer behavior, market research, market segmentation, and planning. Philip Kotler popularised this approach and helped spread the 4 Ps model, noting its value from a "pedagogical point of view".

The prospect of extending the marketing mix first took hold at the inaugural AMA conference dedicated to Services Marketing in the early 1980s, and built on earlier theoretical works pointing to many important limitations of the 4 Ps model. Taken collectively, the papers presented at that conference indicate that service marketers were thinking about a revision to the general marketing mix based on an understanding that services were fundamentally different from products, and therefore required different tools and strategies. In 1981, Booms and Bitner proposed a model of 7 Ps, comprising the original 4 Ps extended by process, people and physical evidence, as being more applicable for services marketing.

Since then, there have been a number of different proposals for a service marketing mix (with various numbers of Ps); most notably the 8 Ps, comprising the 7 Ps above, extended by 'performance'. McCarthy's 4 Ps has remained influential in marketing theory and practice, serving as a cornerstone for analyzing and optimizing marketing strategies in various industries.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Table 1: Brief Outline of 4 Ps

  • Franchising;
  • Market coverage
  • Channel member selection and channel member relationships
  • Assortment
  • Location decisions
  • Inventory
  • Transport, warehousing and logistics

|-

|Promotion

|Promotion refers to marketing communications

May comprise elements such as: advertising, PR, direct marketing and sales promotion.

|

  • Promotional mix - the appropriate balance of advertising, PR, direct marketing, and sales promotion
  • Message strategy - what is to be communicated
  • Channel/ media strategy - how to reach the target audience
  • Message frequency - how often to communicate

|}

thumb|The 4Ps have been the cornerstone of the managerial approach to marketing since the 1960s

Product refers to what the business offers for sale and may include products or services. Product decisions include the "quality, features, benefits, style, design, branding, packaging, services, warranties, guarantees, life cycles, investments and returns".

Price refers to decisions surrounding "list pricing, discount pricing, special offer pricing, credit payment or credit terms". Price refers to the total cost to a customer to acquire the product, and may involve both monetary and psychological costs such as the time and effort spent in acquisition. Distribution channels taken into consideration including retailer, wholesaler, Business to Business or Business to Customer.

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Table 2: Outline of the Expanded Marketing Mix Elements

|-

!Category

!Definition/ Explanation

!Typical Marketing Decisions

|-

| People

| Human actors who participate in service delivery.

Service personnel who represent the company's values to customers.

Interactions between customers.

Interactions between employees and customers.

|

  • Staff recruitment and training
  • Uniforms
  • Scripting
  • Queuing systems, managing waits
  • Handling complaints, service failures
  • Managing social interactions

|-

| Process

| The procedures, mechanisms and flow of activities by which service is delivered.

|

  • Process design
  • Blueprinting (i.e. flowcharting) service processes
  • Standardization vs customization decisions
  • Diagnosing fail-points, critical incidents and system failures
  • Monitoring and tracking service performance
  • Analysis of resource requirements and allocation
  • Creation and measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs)
  • Alignment with Best Practices
  • Preparation of operations manuals

|-

| Physical evidence

| The environment in which service occurs.

The space where customers and service personnel interact.

Tangible commodities (e.g. equipment, furniture) that facilitate service performance.

Artifacts that remind customers of a service performance.

|

  • Facilities (e.g. furniture, equipment, access)
  • Spatial layout (e.g. functionality, efficiency)
  • Signage (e.g. directional signage, symbols, other signage)
  • Interior design (e.g. furniture, color schemes)
  • Ambient conditions (e.g. noise, air, temperature)
  • Design of livery (e.g. stationery, brochures, menus, etc.)
  • Artifacts: (e.g. souvenirs, mementos, etc.)

|}

People are essential in the marketing of any product or service. Personnel stand for the service. In the professional, financial, or hospitality service industry, people are not producers, but rather the products themselves. When people are the product, they impact public perception of an organization as much as any tangible consumer goods. From a marketing management perspective, it is important to ensure that employees represent the company in alignment with broader messaging strategies.

Lauterborn's 4 Cs (1990)

Robert F. Lauterborn proposed a 4 Cs classification in 1990. His classification is a more consumer-orientated version of the 4 Ps that attempts to better fit the movement from mass marketing to niche marketing:

|-

|<div style="text-align: center;">Price</div>

|<div style="text-align: center;">Cost</div>

| Price is only a part of the total cost to satisfy a want or a need. The total cost will consider for example the cost of time in acquiring a good or a service, a cost of conscience by consuming that or even a cost of guilt "for not treating the kids".

|-

|<div style="text-align: center;">Place</div>

|<div style="text-align: center;">Convenience</div>

|In the era of Internet, It represents a broader focus. Communications can include advertising, public relations, personal selling, viral advertising, and any form of communication between the organization and the consumer.

|}

Shimizu's 4 Cs and 7 Cs Compass Model

Koichi Shimizu, a professor at Josai University proposed a 4 Cs classification of the marketing mix in 1973. Then in 1979, it was expanded to the 7 Cs Compass Model. The 7 Cs Compass Model is a framework of co-marketing, a marketing strategy where business entities collaborate closely in their marketing efforts. It can involve the co-creation of marketing for a company where consumers contribute to co-marketing. Co-marketing (or collaborative marketing) is a marketing practice where two companies cooperate with separate distribution channels, sometimes including profit sharing. It is frequently confused with co-promotion. Commensal (symbiotic) marketing is marketing where both corporation and a corporation, a corporation and a consumer etc. can coexist in a mutually beneficial way.

The core of 4 Cs is the corporation itself (company and non profit organization) Other elements include competitors, organizations, and stakeholders within the corporation. The company has to think of compliance and accountability as important. The competition in the areas in which the company competes with other firms in its industry.

The 7Cs Compass Model extends the 4Cs classification (commodity, cost, communication, channel) with three additional classifications. The 4Cs model provides a demand/customer co-creation alternative to the well-known 4Ps supply side model (product, price, promotion, place) of marketing management.

  • Product → Commodity
  • Price → Cost
  • Promotion → Communication
  • Place → Channel

{| class="wikitable"

|-

! "P" category (narrow)

! "C" category (broad)

! "C" definition

|-

|

|(C1) Corporation

|

|-

| Product

|(C2) Commodity

| (Latin derivation: commodus=both convenient and happy): Co-creation goods and services. The goods and services created by corporations and consumers together. Commodity here is different from commoditization. Product out is useless. It is no good to buy it because we made it.

|-

| Price

|(C3) Cost

| (Latin derivation: constare= It makes sacrifices together): Producing cost, selling cost, purchasing cost and Costs for society and the global environment.

|-

|Promotion

|(C4) Communication

|(Latin derivation: communis=sharing of meaning) : marketing communication: Better to use communication than promotion. Promotion has the meaning of pushing forward, but communication has the meaning of communicating with each other. Communications can include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, publicity, personal selling, corporate identity, internal communication, IMC, MIS, SNS,.

|-

|Place

|(C5) Channel

|(Latin derivation: canal) : marketing channels. Flow of goods.

|-

|}

The compass of consumers and circumstances (environment) are:

  • (C6) Consumer – (Needle of compass to consumer)

:The factors related to consumers can be explained by the first character of four directions marked on the compass model. These can be remembered by the cardinal directions, hence the name compass model:

:*N = Needs

:*S = Security: The keywords not found in other models.

:*E = Education: (consumer education)

:*W = Wants

  • (C7) Circumstances – (Needle of compass to circumstances )

:In addition to the consumer, there are various uncontrollable external environmental factors encircling the companies. Here it can also be explained by the first character of the four directions marked on the compass model:

:*N = National and International (Political, legal and ethical) environment

:*S = Social and cultural

:*E = Economic

:*W = Weather: The keywords not found in other models. Consideration of extreme weather, climate change and natural disasters is necessary to make the earth sustainable.

These can also be remembered by the cardinal directions marked on a compass. The 7 Cs Compass Model is a framework in co-marketing (symbiotic marketing). It has been criticized for being little more than the 4 Ps with different points of emphasis. In particular, the 7 Cs inclusion of consumers in the marketing mix is criticized, since they are a target of marketing, while the other elements of the marketing mix are tactics. The 7 Cs also include numerous strategies for product development, distribution, and pricing, while assuming that consumers want two-way communications with companies.

Digital marketing mix

The digital marketing mix is fundamentally the same as Marketing Mix, which is an adaptation of Product, Price, Place and Promotion into digital marketing aspect. Digital marketing can be commonly explained as 'Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies'.

Product

Thanks to the interaction and connection of the Internet, product has been redefined as "virtual product" in the digital marketing aspect, which is regarded as the combination of tangibility and intangibility. Through the form of digital, a product can be directly sent from manufacturers to customers. For example, customers could buy music in the form of an MP3 rather than buy it in the form of a physical CD. As a result, when a company is making strategy for Internet marketing, it is necessary to understand how to vary their products in the online environment. Here are some indications of adapt the product element on the Internet. As for the suppliers, they can adjust prices in the real-time and provide higher degree of price transparency with customers. Besides, the Internet is more likely to ease the pressure on price because online-producers do not have to put budget on renting a physical store.

  • Search marketing, including search engine optimisation(SEO), pay-per-click(PPC).
  • Online PR, encouraging positive comments about one's products or services while reducing negative comments.
  • Online partnerships, building relationships between third-party webs to promote products or services.
  • Interactive advertising
  • Opt-in e-mail advertising
  • Social media marketing, starting and participating in customer to customer, customer to company interaction through social media.

The Internet Mix

The Internet Mix was first proposed by Sidney (Sid) Peimer in a 2004 article in Bizcommunity, where he identified the Internet Mix as consisting of three elements:

  • Sell (trade)
  • Tell (inform)
  • Dwell (entertain)

See also

  • E. Jerome McCarthy
  • Marketing
  • Advertising
  • Co-creation
  • Co-marketing
  • Marketing mix modeling

References

Further reading

  • Four P's, Four C's And The Consumer Revolution
  • Four P's, Four C's And The Consumer Revolution