Will need to do reply to student work per day per comment: Participate by engaging in a discussion with your colleagues, replying to each other’s posts: Constructively critique their assessment of the 4Ps marketing mix. Remember to justify your responses. Expand upon the topic with your own insights and findings from the independent research you have done. Reflect upon ways in which your classmates’ posts may have reshaped your own views. Ask clarifying questions. _____________________________________________________________________ Charissa Top of Form Introduction The 4P’s, which are Product, price, promotion and place, were developed in the 1960’s by Jerome McCarthy. The question is should they be retired, are they outdated or do they still hold validity in conjunction with newer approaches? The answer In today’s ever changing business landscape due to turbulent economic times, technology/ digisation and globalization, we need to look very carefully at a framework developed in the 60’s, as logic dictates it should no longer be relevant. Our customers are no longer just buying a product; they are looking for an experience and a service that creates value, being far more discerning than they ever were! Today we focus on service dominant logic, which is the exchange of services, including customer involvement in co creation of value (Kottler and Keller, 2011)- this is a completely different landscape. Another approach today would be relationship marketing, which is aimed at individuals. Some key weaknesses of the 4 P’s would be 1. Business focuses on “product, technology and quality. “(Ciotti, 2016) Ciotti argues that this is merely ‘the cost of entry today’. 2. The 4 P’s approach doesn’t have enough emphasis on educating the customer on what the value of the service is. (Ciotti, 2016) 3. In a B2B world, “It distracts businesses from leveraging their advantage as a trusted source of problem solving.” 4. The 4 P’s on a not agile, and any framework used in todays business environment needs to be. The 4 P’s are aimed at the whole market and market is reached through communications developed within the marketing mix. Conclusion It can be argued that you could use the 4P’s”traditional marketing” to create your marketing mix and recruit new customers, while using relationship marketing for post sale follow up and individual relationship management and customer retention.(Ciotti, 2016) After reading Wim Rampen’s article ‘Sorry Marketing’s 4P framework is not dead’. I would argue with the advent of SDL, 3 of the 4 P’s are still valid. For place, it may be more complex than before with technology and globalization but your geographic segment is still a factor for consideration in many cases. For price, of course it is still valid even if in a slightly different way. Price helps your customer evaluate the value of your service. For promotion you would still need your product promoted, “even if your customers do it for you”(Rampen, 2011) Unfortunately I could not find the value in the 4th P. Product and Service are not as important as the “value proposition” in todays market.(Rampen, 2011) and would have to agree it is dead! As a final conclusion, there are elements of the Marketing mix framework that can still be considered valid today, although the context has changed significantly and there application cannot be as rigid as originally designed, the co creation of value, experience expectations and the exchange services are what todays customers expect. References Internal Kotler, P. & Keller, K.L. (2012) Framework for marketing management. 5th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice HallExternal Ciotti, G. (2016) Have the 4P’s of marketing become outdated. ‘Help Scout’ [online] Accessed from https://www.helpscout.net/blog/new-4ps-of-marketing/(Accessed on the 8 July 2017) Rampen, W(2011) Sorry the 4 P’s of Marketing Framework are not dead.[online] Accessed from https://wimrampen.com/2011/11/06/sorry-marketings-4p-framework-is-not-dead/(Accessed on the 8 July 2017)