Page 48 - Marketing Management

DEFINING MARKETING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY | CHAPTER 1 25

Updating The Four Ps

McCarthy classified various marketing activities into marketing-mix tools of four broad kinds,
which he called the four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion. 55 The marketing
variables under each P are shown in Figure 1.4.
Given the breadth, complexity, and richness of marketing, however—as exemplified by holistic
marketing—clearly these four Ps are not the whole story anymore. If we update them to reflect the
holistic marketing concept, we arrive at a more representative set that encompasses modern mar-
keting realities: people, processes, programs, and performance, as in Figure 1.5.
People reflects, in part, internal marketing and the fact that employees are critical to marketing
success. Marketing will only be as good as the people inside the organization. It also reflects the fact
that marketers must view consumers as people to understand their lives more broadly, and not just
as they shop for and consume products and services.
Processes reflects all the creativity, discipline, and structure brought to marketing
management. Marketers must avoid ad hoc planning and decision making and ensure
that state-of-the-art marketing ideas and concepts play an appropriate role in all they do.
Only by instituting the right set of processes to guide activities and programs can a firm engage
in mutually beneficial long-term relationships. Another important set of processes guides
the firm in imaginatively generating insights and breakthrough products, services, and
marketing activities.
Programs reflects all the firm’s consumer-directed activities. It encompasses the old four Ps as
well as a range of other marketing activities that might not fit as neatly into the old view of market-
ing. Regardless of whether they are online or offline, traditional or nontraditional, these activities
must be integrated such that their whole is greater than the sum of their parts and they accomplish
multiple objectives for the firm.

|Fig. 1.4|
Marketing mix
The Four P
Components of the
Marketing Mix
Product Place
Product variety Channels
Quality Coverage
Design Assortments
Features Locations
Brand name Inventory
Packaging Transport
Sizes
Services Price Promotion
Warranties List price Sales promotion
Returns Discounts Advertising
Allowances Sales force
Payment period Public relations
Credit terms Direct marketing

|Fig. 1.5|
Marketing Modern Marketing
Mix Management
Four Ps Four Ps The Evolution
Product People of Marketing
Place Processes Management
Promotion Programs
Price Performance