Critical Review of Marketing Mix - Essay Example

Critical Review of Marketing Mix Critical Review of the Marketing Mix. A critical review of Constantinides, E. (2006). The marketing mix re-visited: Towards the 21st century marketing. Journal of marketing management, 407-438. By reviewing several past publications regarding the marketing mix being adopted and their suitability to the changing consumer trends, Constantinides (2006) conducted a study on the suitability of the application of the 4Ps marketing mix in the 21st century. The study was aiming at further shedding light on the need to change the approach marketing practitioners use especially with regards to 4Ps marketing framework with a bias in disfavor of the same framework. Constantinides described from many research scholars the weaknesses and the possible propositions to modify this marketing mix. Several marketing mix have been proposed to be used by practitioners in a bid to improve the total influence that they impact on the total sales (Constantinides, 2006). Among the marketing mixes that have been proposed, is the traditional 4Ps which still stand out as a framework that is used by many marketing practitioners. The research showed that indeed many scholars have been raising their concerns about the unsuitability of 4ps framework being used in the marketing strategies by companies or corporations or business entities wishing to capture the 21st century customers’ attention. His conclusions agreed with his initial assessment and prediction of the same. It is however, noticeable that much of the propositions he relies on have not been tested but are just personal recommendations of the other previous scholars. Nevertheless, the case study gave an insight into the very much argued topic about the appropriate marketing mix that should be used in today’s ever dynamic business world. This whole work again makes it a critical issue to even want know whether the 4ps of marketing is currently applicable to the customers as a way of marketing strategy. The author Efthymios Constantinides is a well experienced person as a lecturer and an expert in the corporate world with a doctorate degree in Virtual marketing. He therefore, is well versed with the required knowledge to write on a topic like this. The doctor according to the way he writes, probably targeted the marketing practitioners as his audience in this publication as well as fellow researchers evidenced at the end of his conclusion remarks where he recommends that further research should be done on the same field. It is also true that these were not the only target audience to Mr. Constantinides going by the way he was insinuating that the practitioners are reluctant to change or move away from the 4Ps model probably due to their early college teachings of the same to them. This in my view means the doctor also aims to influence the current thinking of curriculum designers to also consider revising the marketing model in favor of the revised models and not the “traditional” 4Ps framework. The author’s intention to stick to the guidelines on how to write such paper speaks of him as not only knowing what he is doing but also an experienced academician. He especially listed the key terms although his choice of topic could lead a reader to believe that the content of the document was going to be a general discussion of the whole marketing mix yet he narrowed down to only 4Ps, with regards to five areas being; industrial, relations, consumers, retailers, service marketing, non-profit marketing, on line marketing, network marketing and direct marketing. In general, the article relates very well to the past article touching on the same issue of marketing mix especially those that the author has quoted. Most of them indeed question whether there is any more need to use 4Ps directly the way they are without any modification or alteration. In fact, most of the authors have not only question the same, but also proposed to either modify the 4Ps or do away with them altogether. Summary of the Main Text. The author doctor Efthymios Constantinides in his revisit of the 4Ps marketing mix acknowledges that indeed time is changing and this is going to affect the way marketing is done. He reports that how marketing was done more than four decades ago can’t remain the same. Consumers have changed their tactics of being loyal to a particular brand when marketing was done en masse. Marketers used to target the audience with a generally designed method of promotion. He assess the current standing of 4Ps marketing mix and identifies market developments and trends that obviously will affect the future of marketing. He identifies majorly two weaknesses of the current 4Ps marketing mix as currently used as a management strategy. These weaknesses, he asserts, re-enforces the past investigation on the same matter. This topic he claims has inspired as well as divided the marketing field of marketing. He claims the 4Ps marketing mix has its origin in 1960s beginning with the twelve controllable marketing factors as proposed by (Borden, 1964) which were later on reduced to only four simple frameworks of price, promotion, product and place. Majority of marketing managers often view this mix as the basic operation marketing planning. This confirms the study done among executives of the 550 Dutch company as reported by (Alsem, et al., 1996). This study revealed that 70% of the companies embrace official marketing planning as a basis for operations marketing plans with responsibilities for mix decisions being divided into different departments. The loyalty to this 4Ps mix he claims owes its origin from the college curriculum where most current practitioners passed through. Having been taught using a curriculum that emphasizes much on the 4ps tend to be relatively reluctant to embracing other mix. This factor indeed confirms the wide acceptance of this marketing strategy. This was further enhanced by the fact that many academics sympathized with the idea that chances of succeeding in marketing activities may increase only if the 4ps recommendation on marketing was optimized. Constraints to the Study The literatures reviewed were only related to the six marketing sub disciplines thereby limiting its generalization to other almost similar cases. Then there was this problem of bias where each book reviewed were assigned only to one of the six areas studied. Then there is a major concern of bias in favor of academic literature instead of equal-sided approach to this equally very important matter of marketing. There is the major worry of including textbooks theories in this study yet is well known that text books are not scholarly articles. In fact, most of the books quoted were old ones thereby raising the question of appropriateness of this study results to today’s conditions. Criticism of the Four Ps Most of the criticism originates from the discrepancy between the thinking behind the framework of 4Ps marketing mix and the basics of management school of marketing on one side of the reasoning. It lacks the market input and does not put much consideration on the customer needs or wants. Then there is the marketing thematic entities emerging including the consumer marketing, social marketing, retail marketing, online marketing, international marketing, strategic marketing, network marketing, trade marketing, relational marketing and industrial marketing. These require more approach that supersedes the 4Ps framework. 4Ps framework does not consider the need to develop a long lasting relationship to satisfy the ever changing consumer demands. A Disciplinary Classification of the Marketing Mix and the Criticism. This the author analyzed according to what he termed as sub-disciplines of the five traditional marketing management and another emerging one. The sub discipline s being referred to in his text includes consumer marketing, Relationship marketing, online marketing, retail marketing and industrial marketing. The Marketing Mix and the Consumer Marketing Analysis The author states that due to the changing nature of consumer preferences and less responsiveness to traditional marketing stimuli, much has changed that compromises the effectiveness of the 4Ps in successfully winning over the consumers and retaining them. This is contributed to by the cultural, social, demographic and economic factors that have been prevailing on them in the past decades. They now demand for a more individualized and better information on issues of production. Consumers he reports are now becoming sophisticated and powerful due to online access to global commercial firms. It is for this reason that he claims marketers have been forced to switch from the mass marketing to a more personalized marketing. He reports that the major areas that have attracted criticism by many authors are; internal lack of customer orientation. He attest that this is the major limitation of the 4Ps. Then there is the lack of consumer interactivity which is also supported by the research by Yudelson (1999). He echoes the reasoning of Yudelson that the traditional mix does not consider the dynamic nature of consumers who now want to involve in the transaction process and enhanced communication. Finally, the concern of strategic discontent makes the framework inappropriate for planning instrument in an externally controlled environment. He cites authors who recommend different propositions to modify the APs with most of them suggesting change to Cs targeting customers, competitors and corporations. Others also introduces Vs of viability, value, variety, virtue while others like Yudelson only modifies the current 4Ps. Relationship Marketing This kind of marketing as explained by the author has a lot to do with establishing customer loyalty. The report was a major phenomenon in the 1960s. This made it easier for companies to carry out mass marketing. However, due to market saturation and economic crises, many marketing strategies now focus on developing a program that ensures customer retention by offering personalized lifelong customer value. The current strategy value a lot the acquiring new customers as well as retaining old ones. In this review, the 4Ps marketing mix tends to be product oriented thereby neglecting the customer. It is also not very good for a strategy to not only focus on acquiring new customers but also retaining the available one. The cited author like Lauterborm however, recommends introduction of the Cs including customer needs, convenience, cost and communication. Other authors also suggested introduction of personalization, personnel, physical assets and procedures. However, in general, most authors recommend creating a long term relationship with customers as a marketing tool. Services Marketing The author describes the difference between tangible and intangible products with the latter being what he refers to as services. He claims many researchers stressed the special nature of service marketing especially since most of the developed economies nowadays rely on services as generators of their economy. Better services contribute to a competitive advantage against others. Booms and Bitner (1981) claims in addition to the ordinary 4Ps, there should be more 3Ps including participants, physical evidence and process. This marketing he claims is unique due to the human component which embraces interaction and quality which is missing in the traditional4Ps. Retail Marketing For long, many manufacturers have been directly communicating with customers neglecting the role of retailers who were only acting as stockers and resellers of their products. Producers employed mass marketing aimed at directly convincing customers of their products to increase the awareness of their brands. However, this power is shifting to retailers with globalization and private branding. Retailers have also increased their numbers forcing each of them to differentiate and brand their products. This, according to the author, contributes to more customers frequenting the shop. Efforts to build a long lasting relationship with customers drifted the attention from passive application of the 4Ps by focusing on retail formats, personnel and services. Others include physical evidence where the retailers ensure the needed goods are available when needed in their right physical state and time. Others recommend considering prices, network, database, shop presentation, communication and image. Industrial Marketing He supports that 4Ps marketing mix is not very appropriate as a conceptual basis for the marketing especially in the technology industry due to its original design to market only consumer products without consideration of the international impact. This value-based marketing updates each of the 4ps. However, this marketing would require that value is created to the customer. E-Marketing Many researchers are in support of the 4ps as a marketing strategy .he claims that other researchers although support the same, they suggest minor changes. However, he confirms that this method lack interactivity, personalization and lack of community building making it hard to synchronize with the e-marketing. In the end, the author recommends further research to be done on the new technologies and market trends. This he suggest will help to find out for how long online marketers had been applying the mix independently as a tool of marketing planning for internet startups in the 90s. Critique While appreciating the good work of revisiting the past materials on the 4Ps as a marketing mix and its suitability to the 21st century marketing strategies, it is imperative that most of the requirement for doing and reporting such a study should be followed. The author did well in stating the introduction even though the abstract was not clearly labeled so. The reporting of such documents should require the author to follow the guidelines for writing such journals including indicating the abstract and summarizing the whole document under the same title. He also did well in describing the objective even though reading through the text one could not help but notice that there was a great bias in presentation of the ideas. Instead of the author operating on a middle ground to portray the realistic picture of the ongoing debate about the applicability of 4Ps in the 21st century. Most of the cited works were all those in favor of his opinion with no facts about those who support and suggest it could be applied today being cited. It is also necessary to acknowledge that this review did not cover the whole marketing domain. He only focused on the three sub-disciplines disregarding what the contribution of the 4Ps would be in other sub disciplines not studied. For the sake of fairness and for the data to warrant generalization, it would have been fair to indicate the procedures he used in arriving at the five chosen sub-disciplines. For now, the audience can’t tell whether the author used a random process or whichever decision he used. The clarity of the methods used to arrive at this remains unknown and questionable and hence one can ask if the findings can really be generalized. In another conflicting issue, is the specific use of very old materials to try to infer that their findings and recommendations can still hold water today. To make it worse, most of the material s quoted were non research documents with publication dates going before 1990s. Indeed consumer demands changes and so should the new research materials. There are new updated materials that could have been more convincing if used to address this topic. Using textbooks in such study often compromise the findings because textbooks just like as indicated above are non-research materials. In general, the review was good but the materials used dirties its authenticity. Finally, what caught my attention was the citation of the propositions by different authors regarding the topic. Even though this was appropriate, it is noticeable that their recommendations were not stated whether they had been researched. The way they were put may make them appear just like ordinary opinions without any scientific backing. In fact, the whole concept of 4Ps was not introduced properly to shed light on how each P is used/applied apart from just mentioning what each stands for in the text. This may make it hard for somebody not versed with marketing information to even comprehend what it means. However, it is also fair to acknowledge the best parts of the study. The author specifically did well in arranging the subheadings in a manner that anybody reading the text can notice the flow of ideas. The review of literature was particularly good bringing in past research that had also been done on the same topic. The use and arrangement of tables describing the author, his arguments and what he or she proposed was really appealing and make it easy to analyze the marketing mix well according to the sub disciplines. The conclusion part was also well reported including everything in the body of the text in brief and stating his recommendations. Conclusion In general, the study reflects a fact that is obviously apparent. Many researchers and scholars have pointed out the fact that 4Ps as a marketing strategy is no longer applicable in its own to the current market. Indeed there should be some sort of modification of the framework to accommodate the changing consumer behaviors. However, the author appear to have come strongly in a manner that a reader can’t help but notice bias in his argument. Nevertheless, just like Constantinides recommends, this field indeed, needs further research to ascertain the viabilities of the propositions made by the authors and or make tested recommendation thereafter. Bibliography Borden, N. H., 1964. The concept of marketing mix. Journal of advertising research, pp. 2-7. Constantinides, E., 2006. The marketing mix re-visited: Towards the 21st century marketing. Journal of marketing management, pp. 407-438. K.J Alsem, J. H. B. V. d. H., 1996. Marketing orientation and strategies in Netherlands, s.l.: University of Groningen. Read More