The origins of the marketing mix

Section B. MARKETING MIX

Text 3. “Marketing Mix”

Pre-reading discussion:

1. What is marketing mix?
2. Why is marketing mix regarded as one of the basic concepts of marketing?
3. How many elements can be included into the model of marketing mix?

Read the text and answer the questions below.

First let’s consider the development of the marketing mix. Since the 1950s and 1960-s the marketing mix model has been widely considered a cornerstone of marketing. However, much debate and controversy surrounds the development and continued use of this framework. In this section two fundamental issues are considered:

o the origins of the marketing mix

o the rationale for extending the mix from the original 4Ps.

The origins of the marketing mix

Marketing academics and students tend to believe that the marketing mix originated as the 4Ps. However, during the 1940s and 1950s several researchers were debating the link between certain combinations of price and product. In 1948 Culliton (of the Harvard Business School) in his study of manufacturer's marketing costs described the business executive as a:

'decider/ and 'artist' - a 'mixer of ingredients/ who sometimes follows a recipe prepared by others, sometimes prepares his own 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 1948 and Borden 1964)

We see clearly here the view that business executives mixed elements together in order to effectively market their product. Culliton's phrase appealed directly to Neil H. Borden, also of Harvard Business School, who melded the phrase 'mixer of ingredients' into the 'marketing mix' (Borden 1964). For him it consisted of important elements or ingredients that comprised marketing programme (Borden 1964). Borden's original 'marketing mix of manufacturers' contained 12 components as outlined in Table 1.1.

Borden did not believe that his list was definitive, and suggested that others might have different perspectives. However, it was E. Jerome McCarthy who in the 1960s developed the mnemonic the '4Ps' which has become the most enduring of the marketing mix frameworks (McCarthy 1965). McCarthy regrouped Borden's 12 elements into:

o product

o price

o promotion

o placement (also known as place, for distribution).

Originally McCarthy (1965) defined the marketing mix as:

A combination of all the factors at a marketing manager's command to satisfy the target market.

With Perreault, he later revised this statement to

The controllable variables that an organization can co-ordinate to satisfy the target market.

(McCarthy and Perreault 1987)