Are the 4 P's still working today.

I still remember my first week at Ten10 Communications in London, thinking I had arrived in the bright world of advertising and marketing and how I was bound to become one of those creative ad men who would create something truly unique or be overseeing wonderful commercials being shot in the sun.

I travel home each night eager to learn something new and existing and that first week it was the 4 P’s of marketing. Price, Product, Promotion, Placement. My Account Manager give my their CIM workbook. Over the next twelve months it became my foundation stone, all my campaign logic was based on those principles.

Nearly twenty years later though the question has to be asked, do they still form the foundation of today’s marketing mix?

So let’s quickly review what they meant;

Product
What product is offered by British Telecom? It is certainly much more than the cables and telephone hand- sets which they provide. It is communication, reassurance when you call an elderly relative, happiness when you receive a call from somebody you love, excitement when you hear good news and sadness when you hear bad, and relief when he says he will come round at 10.00pm on Sunday night. Similarly a hotel is much more than a place to stay to sleep and eat. It may be a surrogate home when you are away on business, a haven of refuge when you are stranded, or a prison if you find yourself caught up in, say, the Gulf conflict. It may be a place to relax, to work, to entertain or be entertained, to confer or just to lie around in the sun. Deciding what business you are in, what your product is, is one of the key issues of marketing and to decide, you need information from your customers.

Promotion
Promotion is about telling people what you have to offer. It is not entirely separate from the product because what is said and how it is said influences how the product is seen. You sell ‘the sizzle not the sausages’, you certainly do not sell ‘carbonated water with vegetable extracts’, you sell Coke with all the images of sun, youth, vitality, and world-wide harmony.
Promotion includes advertising but also includes direct mail, public relations, printed brochures, presence at travel trade shows, and participation in joint marketing schemes. Promotion can be very expensive and it is often difficult to decide whether or not it is successful.

Price
Price is the one element in the marketing mix, which is what the 4 Ps are called, which provides revenue. The other three involve cost, which may explain why marketing is less popular than it might be. Price is often determined by the cost, with a margin being added to yield a profit or return on the investment. Marketing, however, would recommend using price strategically to help to achieve the goals of the business, varying the price according to the level of demand and the willingness of the market to pay the price. Marketing is about giving each product or business its ‘unique selling proposition’ so that it is different from all competitive products and can command a premium price.
Price is also an indicator of quality, particularly for the first time buyer, and while it remains so, subsequent purchases are much more concerned with judgement of value for money.

Placement
Place really means distribution. You can buy a packet of tissues almost anywhere but the places where you can buy tourism are relatively few. Nor is tourism very well packaged in the domestic market: It is much easier to buy an all-inclusive holiday abroad than to buy one in the UK.

Definition provided by Stuart Riley -Marketing Dept of  Lancaster University. 

So what as changed if anything? 

Well for starter one of my hero's,  Philip Kotler started to talk about the 4C's. Place has become Convenience to our end users.  Customers are now truly king, with the ability to where and when they purchase. Retailing is now all about click and mortar, online is now driven by social media pages. Social media phenomenons like Groupon are changign the face of localised placement.

But there is still placement. You still need to place you product / service somewhere but it's now dictated by the customer. They are choosing where and how to buy your products and you need to reactive positively to that interaction.

Price has become the in so ways the COST to the consumer. Traditionally it was the revenue making element of the 4 P's. However, now you have to consider how that perceived cost would affect the purchasers decision making process. What is meant by this is, if they hadn't brought your product what could they brought instead.

A brand new car for instance give the would be purchaser a great deal of alternative choices. Holiday / Luxury goods etc. So the Price / Cost has to be measured in line with the alternatives and opportunities that exist.

Promotion is Communication. If anything little as changed here, you still need to promote your product / service to your target audience. Though what is changing is how we do that and the rise of brand advocates in that communication process.

It's no longer all about push communications  but more importantly pull communications that our target  audience generate themselves through their own activities and peer communications. I have been talking about ALL MEDIA CUSTOMER ENGINEERING for over ten years. Is there true consistency of brand / core differentials / messaging etc across all your brands touch points?

If the answer is no, then that where mis-communication takes place and create confusion because you are not controlling the messages.

Finally, Product became Needs and Wants for the customer. The mentality has changed, it's no longer about 'if you build it, they will come". You have to understand what your target audience wants and desires. 



So in summary, the 4 P's are still there and form must strategic marketing but they've changed. The reason, we've changed and are continuing to change too.