Marketing mix

Meaning and Concept The marketing mix approach to marketing is a model of crafting and implementing marketing strategies. It stresses the "mixing" or blending of various factors in such a way that both organizational and consumer (target markets) objectives are attained. The model was developed by Neil Borden (Borden, N. 1964) who first started using the phrase in 1949. Borden claims the phrase came to him while reading James Culliton's description of the activities of a business executive: (An executive is) "a mixer of ingredients, who sometimes follows a recipe as he goes along, sometimes adapts a recipe to the ingredients immediately available, and sometimes experiments with or invents ingredients no one else has tried." (Culliton, J. 1948) When blending the mix elements, marketer(s) must consider their target market. They must understand the wants and needs (see Maslow) of the market (customer) then use these mix elements in constructing (formulating) appropriate marketing strategies and plans that will satisfy these wants. The mix must also meet or exceed the objectives of the organization. As Borden put it,"When building a marketing program to fit the needs of his firm, the marketing manager has to weigh the behavioral forces and then juggle marketing elements in his mix with a keen eye on the resources with which he has to work." (Borden, N. 1964 pg 365). The most common variables used in constructing a marketing mix are price, promotion, product and place (also called distribution). First suggested by Jerome McCarthy (McCarthy, J. 1960), they are sometimes referred to as the four P's. McCarthy's four P's look at marketing from the perspective of the marketer. It describes what variables marketers have to work with, and hence is sometimes referred to as a marketing management perspective. Another set of marketing mix variables were developed by Albert Frey. He (Frey, A. 1961) classified the marketing variables into two categories: the offering, and process variables. The "offering" consists of the product, service, packaging, brand, and price. The "process" or "method" variables included advertising, promotion, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, distribution channels, marketing research, strategy formation, and new product development. More recently, Bernard Booms and Mary Bitner built a model consisting of seven P's (Booms, B. and Bitner, M. 1981). In addition to product, price, promotion, and place, they included people, physical evidence, and process. "People" was added, to recognize the importance of the human element in all aspects of marketing. They added "process" to reflect the fact that services, unlike physical products, are experienced as a process at the time that they are purchased. "Physical evidence" or "peripheral clues" reflects the physical surroundings associated with a service encounter or retail location. Other marketing theorists include "partners" as a mix variable because of the growing importance of collaborative channel relationships. One more P, packaging, has been added to this list by some people. The rationale is that it is very important how the product is presented to the customer, and the packaging is often the first contact that a customer has with a product. The marketing mix model is often expanded to include sub-mixes. For example, the promotion variable can be further decomposed into a promotional mix consisting of advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, publicity, direct marketing, undercover marketing, viral marketing, and e-marketing. Within the promotional mix, advertising can be further broken down into an "advertising media mix" that specifies how much emphasis is placed on television ads, radio ads, newspaper ads, internet ads, magazine ads, etc.