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DUBLIN BUSINESS SCHOOL
The 4Ps
Critical Analysis the article:
Marketing Mix Revisited: Towards the 21st
Century Marketing
Student Name: Adjonyo Noah
Date: 20th March, 2015
Student Number: 10159217@mydbs.ie
Word Count: 2972
Course Code: B9MK110
Course Title: Performance Driven Marketing
Name of Lecturer: John Stauton
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Critical Analysis of the Marketing Mix Adjonyo Noah | 10159217@mydbs.ie
Table of Contents
1 Summary: Marketing Mix Article.......................................................................................... 3
1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................... 3
1.2 Emerging trends in Consumer behaviour....................................................................... 3
2 Critical analysis of marketing mix article.............................................................................. 5
2.1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 5
2.2 Authors’ argument ........................................................................................................... 6
2.3 Authors main points and evidence ................................................................................. 6
3 An Up-to-Date standing .......................................................................................................... 9
3.1 Recent views/tools of the Marketing Mix or 4ps ........................................................ 10
4 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 10
Bibliography.................................................................................................................................. 11
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1 Summary: Marketing Mix Article
1.1 Background
Marketing mix as a theoretical foundation of understanding marketing, arouse in 1960s. It was
formulated by a writer called Neil Borden who identified four elements which include place,
product, promotion and price. It is usually trusted by many firms when it comes to market
planning. This is because it influences buying decisions and essay to apply in different
scenarios.
However, marketing mix has its obvious weaknesses in terms of application in management of
relationship and marketing of industrial products. Therefore, alternatives have been fronted to
cater for its shortcomings The article objective is to present current debate among academicians
on the effective of marketing mix as a management tool in light several disciplines of
management such consumer marketing, relationship marketing and retail marketing. In
addition, the article will discuss the relevance of the mix in the emerging marketing domains
such as electronic marketing. However, while looking at these objectives, the research is
limited in several ways. The sources of academic views are one sided as well marketing
domains chosen may be irrelevant to other areas.
1.2 Emerging trends in Consumer behaviour
Changes in consumers buying behaviours have prompted a change in marketing approaches.
Proliferation of information technology has affected marketing greatly. Consumers are also
changed their buying behaviour and adopted personalized buying which require relationship
building as well being innovativeness. There have been emerging issues such as electronic
marketing as well need for building relationship with clients which limits the traditional
marketing mix.
The relationship between 4Ps and consumer marketing can be traced to rapid changes in
consumers’ needs as well buying behaviours. Nowadays consumers are empowered in terms
of their awareness and purchase powers which needs better handling. This has prompted
marketers to adopt personalization in marketing instead of mass market marketing. This will
enable marketers notice change in consumer needs, respond to competitive forces and predict
markets trends. In this relationship, there are obvious shortcomings of marketing mix. There is
lack of consumer orientation, lack of interaction with consumers and lack of strategic elements.
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Several authors have suggested alternative such as Kotler 1994, where marketing mix should
have customers, environmental factors and competitive forces.
Another domain of marketing is marketing mix and relationship marketing. This paradigm has
shown that customer loyalty is important in building new business. This can only be achieved
through personalization of marketing activities. Global competition and dynamic consumer
behaviours are driving factors for relationship marketing. For example, researcher Lauterborm
1990 suggests that 4Ps should be cost, customer needs, convenience and communication. Most
companies have adopted on creating a long term customer relationship by advertising as a
marketing tool. Authors also highlight shortcomings of marketing mix here as one way
orientation.
Another domain refers to service marketing and marketing mix. Service marketing has gained
prominence due to immense contribution to economy in the recent past. Brunner 1989 comes
up with 4Ps in this domain which consists of concept mix, cost mix, channels and
communication mix. Authors have pointed important element of service marketing as aspect
of human element. Therefore, human factor is used to market and deliver service. Therefore, it
means it is persuasive factor and can change perception of consumers.
Retail marketing is another domain that we can use to evaluate marketing mix. Retailers
previously were seen less powerful in the supply chain. They suffered neglect but now they
have more powers in marketing. Offering personalized services has been a critical tool of
creating a long term relationship with customers. Marketing mix fails to add new elements of
physical evidence, shopping experience and atmosphere. Customer experience is important in
personalized service where differentiation and retention are aimed to be achieved. For example,
Kotler 2004 has suggested that due to customer sophistication, new elements to the 4Ps need
to be included. These include price decisions, store atmosphere and place decision.
The last aspect of domain is the e-marketing. Electronic business activities have prompted the
customer to be empowered, offer two way interaction, global business, market transparency
and difficult in maintaining competitive advantages. However, many authors on marketing
have taken a cautious attitude toward research in e-marketing due to its newness. Mosley and
Matchet 1997 proposes several 4ps such as who, as target audience, what as content, when as
updates, where fundability and lastly why as unique selling proposition.
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The 21st Century will see many changes in critical factors affecting marketing. Therefore, there
is need for further research on marketing mix as a tool for marketing management. This is
fronted by limited experiment and validation of normative frameworks. Debate on role of
marketing mix continuous as new approaches and alternative are offered by authors. However,
shortcomings of marketing mix have been identified include lack of human element, offensive
exposure, lack of interaction with customers and lack of strategic elements. Besides, there is
lack of personalization which will retention customer and build loyalty. However, the article
has highlighted marketing mix essential features such as simplicity, applicability and richness.
Debate still goes on their relevance in marketing and arguments depend on mix relevance to
the user.
2 Critical analysis of marketing mix article
2.1 Introduction
The article focuses on revisiting debate on marketing mix and trends in the 21st Century by E.
Constantinides from University of Twente. Marketing mix has been there for over 5 decades.
In is an important tool for helping in marketing management. However, awareness of
consumers due to proliferation of technology and need for personalization of consumers
experience have challenged the traditional 4Ps in marketing. Today, we have consumers who
have unpredictable buying behaviours and are empowered in decision making. Traditional
marketing mix had obvious shortcomings. It lacks personalization to consumers, lacks
interaction in form of communication and customer orientation. This has led to paradigm of
relationship marketing, electronic marketing and retail marketing. The article goes on address
the inherent weaknesses of 4Ps of marketing by suggesting alternatives which address today
challenges of sophisticated consumers as well the environment in marketing. Therefore, this
article tries to unravel the relevance of marketing mix as a marketing management tool as well
as point out role of the mix in the emerging marketing domain such as electronic marketing.
The article also highlights difficulties in conducting a research on marketing. The limitations
mentioned include lack of data and theoretical issues on marketing rather than empirical
evidence.
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2.2 Authors’ argument
Costantinides lays bare an argument that past marketing mix of 4Ps is facing challenges in the
dynamic marketing world. His argument is that new changes in consumer behaviour,
environment changes, technology change and consumers, needs has made the traditional
marketing mix become almost irrelevant. He goes to highlight emerging issues such as
electronic marketing which is dynamic. This is because consumers are empowered to get
information on their due to rapid internet access. Therefore, firms must strategize how to
market their goods and services in order to capture their needs. Such consumers need constant
interaction with business owners and can also provide interaction with other consumers. He
gives a scenario on social media where consumers interact with firms as well fellow consumers
about quality of goods and services. This provides a two way communication for feedback on
marketing strategies. The writer has highlighted several criticism of marketing. It lacks
customer orientation, strategic elements as well lack of personalization to customers.
The author arguments is that despite the current debate on the role of marketing mix in
marketing management, there is need to extend more research into this subject. This is
necessary in order to explain better approaches to marketing management which reflect current
dynamics of consumer behaviour which is unpredictable. This comes into backdrop of several
authors’ criticisms of marketing mix and offering of alternatives. These include lack of
customer orientation and personalization.
2.3 Authors main points and evidence
In the introduction part, the author lays a foundation by discussing the history of use of
marketing mix traditional marketing management efforts. The authors alleges that marketing
mix was and still popular with marketers because of its relative ease of use, richness and
applicability. It was also entrenched as a fundamental concept of commercial philosophy. This
endorsement provided the relevant to marketing mix and its popularity. Therefore, it provides
a yardstick for measuring contemporary marketing.
The author has done a good by tracing the history of marketing and providing reasons why it
was popular among marketers. This provides readers with historical accounts from where up
to date account of its relevance can be analyzed. The writer has attributed its popular use to
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endorsement from marketing academician as well its relative use. The author however did not
point any difficulties encountered when using the marketing mix in the early days. This account
is therefore one sided.
The author stipulates the aims and objectives of the article which is commendable. He goes
ahead to outline the limitation of the research. Limitation of research is necessary to show
readers that a researcher is limited in particular ways. However, the author does not give
solutions or ways in which one can in future overcome such limitations. What if one intended
to carry out the same research in future? How can they improve on their expected results?
In the next sections, the writer goes to look at the criticism of marketing mix in light of new
paradigm of marketing management. The criticism arises from changes in consumer attitudes
and as well competitive market. The research fails to consult experience and ideas from
practical marketing knowledge. Instead it relies on academician opinions. The author draws his
reviews from many authors who studied the subject and made suggestions. There are no views
from marketing practitioners. Therefore, it lacks useful insights from marketers. For example,
Coca Cola firm is embracing technology such as social media to interact with customers
worldwide.
The authors argue that classifying marketing domain can only be done using a qualitative
approach. However, we know that marketing is complex discipline. Therefore, where does one
start to criticize marketing mix? Using qualitative approach may be prone to a lot of
generalization which is not useful in understanding challenges faced by marketing.
The authors discuss the limitations of marketing mix based on several points. For example,
Kotler 1984 says that marketing mix lack customer orientation. The customer’s aspect in the
4Ps is handled in a passive manner, no room for the dynamic nature of customer’s [customer
behavior] This is important point. Customers want personalized service to develop loyalty. It
also lacks interaction with customers and strategic elements. However, the author suggests that
marketing mix should be abolished as a foundation for consumer marketing management.
There are no alternatives given for these shortcomings. It would be asking too much to brush
aside this concept without suggesting alternatives.
The author suggests that in relationship marketing, personalization through building customer
loyalty should be emphasized. However, this can only happen if there change in attitude which
takes time. Therefore, it is possible but takes time. For example, research done by Ailawadi et
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al 2001 questions whether marketing contributes to customer retention. This is wrong since we
know that advertising and marketing helps to build brand presence and therefore enhance
loyalty. Therefore this could be misleading research. That is the reason why firms spend
billions of their revenue in advertising.
Human element in service marketing has been endorsed much and seen as the only factor
critical in service marketing. Personnel can also contribute to customers’ apathy and rejection
to products due to ignorance on knowledge of marketing. Language barriers can also affect
human element in service marketing.
On the domain of retail marketing, the research downplays the impacts of retail market. Retail
market is still critical in getting feedback from consumers on product quality. The research just
says how retail market has been affected by globalization. Personnel is a critical factor but has
been overrated.
When looking at industrial marketing, personalized service is against mass market in marketing
mix. The author lays two conflicting concepts which make understating of the industrial
marketing confusing. The domain has little information to offer in terms of real life experience
of firm doing industrial marketing.
In the last section on electronic marketing, the author presents reviews which suggest how
empowerment of consumers has affected business. But the author does tell readers of
opportunities that have been presented by electronic commerce and their positive impacts on
marketing mix. However, reviews of authors on this domain reveal negative attitude towards
electronic marketing. This is ironic situation. If earlier authors do not approve traditional
marketing mix, why not support the new domain?
In the need of the research, the writer invites readers for more debate and research on
marketing mix. However, he acknowledges that there is a problem of objective evaluation in
this research. There is lack of analysis of academic arguments. Instead, the authors have just
reviewed ideas from contemporary authors on the subject. This limits achievement of the
objective of the research which is to see current and future state of relevant role of marketing
mix in marketing management. We may never reach a conclusion on this matter owing to lack
of objective analysis of marketing mix. The research at the end poses questions on the death of
online firms in 1990s due to 4Ps. This is a question that should have been answered by the
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research itself. The research ends with highlight on the weaknesses of 4Ps in the marketing
without any mention of their contribution towards marketing. This is one sided review.
“Marketing activities should be based on identification of customer needs and wants”
(Constantinides,2006, p. 411). Marketing activities, corporate strategy, various channels of
communication
3 An Up-to-Date standing
The current debate on the marketing mix is about its relevance in light many changes such as
technology and consumer buying behaviours. This has been complicated due to lack of
empirical research carried out as well newness of subject such electronic marketing.
Knowing the original 4Ps focused on the products, Nguyen (2013, p. 86) argued by expressing
the reliance on consumer behaviour by the services and internet aided market.
Ismail & Nasser (2014, p. 8) highlighted the necessity for companies to pay a particular
attention to the needs of the customers while formulating their Marketing Mix strategy and that
market segmentation can help. This is an approach that companies with competitive profiles
should take. Sing (2012, p. 40) agreed to this view with his explanation of the Marketing mix,
and also went further to describe them as variables which can be carefully altered meet carve
out a particular buyer’s response and he related those to the elements of 4Ps
Table 3:1: The Elements of 4Ps. (Singh, 2012, p. 40)
Relationship marketing aims not only at attracting but also retaining customers and
knowing them better. (Nguyen, 2013, p. 86)
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3.1 Recent views/tools of the Marketing Mix or 4ps
Electronic marketing represents new challenge on marketing mix. This is because it offers
interaction with marketers as well fellow customers on products. This is in contrast to
traditional domain of marketing. Therefore, this is a big challenge on marketing mix based on
4Ps. In the work carried out by Akroush (2011, p. 141), it was discovered that the 4Ps still had
a dominant effect over the extended 3Ps that contributed to 7Ps.
With the area of marketing enabled by the internet e-commerce and the rest, Srivastava (2012,
p. 1) brought in other blends in the form of Portability, Performance, Payment and Privacy
which directs its effect to the customer’s judgement of the product attempted to be marketed.
(Hyman & Aguirre, 2015) Brought the marketing mix into a political context projecting the
candidate as the Product, your voting rights is the Price, the choice or place or medium used
by the candidate to propagate his visions or information is the (p. 4) Place and the visions,
ideas and identity of the candidates (properly packaged) before or after election is the
Promotion. It makes sense that the possibility of using the 4Ps in the political landscape can
help the professionals working alongside a candidate
In respect to E-marketing, Dominici (2009, p. 20), highlighted that due to the premature and
ambiguous nature of the E-Market, the best that can be done is to alter the main elements in
the 4Ps to suite various digital context that may arise.
Meng & Chatwin (2013) came up with a formula for E-Marketing Mix which from evaluating
the combined relativeness of the 4Ps, 4Cs and the 4Ps+P2C2S3 Model could provide a pretext
create an e-marketing mix tool for e-marketing stake holders to benefit from.
Many authors have suggested the tool of personalization as critical in marketing. This should
enhance customer experience and move along their needs. This comes against the fact that
customers are sophisticated nowadays and are aware of many choices that exists in the market.
Personalization should be presenting services that appeal to individual taste of customers.
4 Conclusion
Traditional marketing mix has been disputed by several authors which were reviewed and
almost all made suggestions. The author of the research article has achieved to review of
contribution of past authors rather than provide academic analysis of relevance of marketing
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mix. This makes the research article weak in informing audiences on role of marketing mix. It
also lacks empirical account in current state of 4Ps. Therefore, at the end the readers are left
with more questions than answers. For example, fundamental principles of marketing have not
been mentioned and therefore this research would not be useful to a reader who is new on
marketing issues. Therefore, the methodology of exploratory chosen by the researcher is weak
in terms of usefulness of the information. However, the research is relevant in forming audience
of contemporary issues such as consumer behaviour and influence of technology on marketing.
Finally, validity of some arguments such as human element may be contested in this research.
Bibliography
Ailawadi, K.L., Lehmann, D.R. and Neslin, S.A. (2001), “Market Response to a Major Policy
Change in the Marketing Mix: Learning from Procter & Gamble’s Value Pricing Strategy”.
Journal of Marketing, Vol. 65 Issue 1, p44
Kotler, P. (1984), Marketing Management: Analysis, planning and Control, Fifth edition,
Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Kotler, P. (2003), Marketing Management, 11th Edition, Prentice Hall International Editions
(Akroush, 2011)
Akroush, N. M., 2011. The 7Ps Classification of the Services Marketing Mix Revisited: An
Empirical Assessment of their Generalisability, Applicability and Effect on Performance -
Evidence from Jordan’s Services Organisations. Jordan Journal of Business Administration,
7(1), pp. 116-147.
Dominici, G., 2009. From Marketing Mix to e-Marketing Mix: a literature overview and
classification. International Journal of Business and Management, August, 4(9), pp. 17-24.
Hyman, M. R. & Aguirre, G., 2015. The marketing mix and the political marketplace. NM State
University Business Outlook, 13(3), pp. 1-4.
Ismail, M. A. & Nasser, J. S., 2014. Relationship marketing mix and consumer behavior.
International Journal of Scientific Research, 6(2), pp. 1-9.
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Meng, S. K. & Chatwin, C., 2013. Measuring E-Marketing Mix Elements for Online Business.
International Journal of E-Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Volume 3, pp. 13-26.
Nguyen, H. S., 2013. The Fall of the Marketing Mix:A Paradigm Shift Needed. Journal of
Development and Integration, September.pp. 83-88.
Singh, M., 2012. Marketing Mix of 4P’S for Competitive Advantage. Journal of Business and
Management, 3(6), pp. 40-45.
Srivastava, R., 2012. Shift of Marketing Mix to E-Marketing Mix: The Birth to New Era. Social
Science Research Network.
