You don’t have to be a marketing genius or business management guru to have heard of the 4Ps. If you are in business you’ve definitely used the 4Ps (product, place, price and promotion), also known as the marketing mix, a tool kit which people in business manipulate in order to satisfy their customers and implement their strategies.

I encourage business people out there to use this simple tool kit

I recently came across the business research of Ettenson, Conrado and Knowles which updates and improves the original 4Ps and I must say I liked the concept. The acronym of this new and improved tool kit is ‘Save’. Instead of ‘product’ its ‘solution’, instead of ‘place’ it’s ‘access’, instead of ‘price’ it’s ‘value’ and instead of ‘promotion’ it’s ‘education’.

Don’t get me wrong: the 4Ps has indeed served us well for at least half a century but the truth is that it is looking a bit outdated. In the 1990s, academics had argued that the 4Ps model was a company-centric way of looking at product marketing and suggested the 4Cs (consumer, cost, convenience and communication) which was deemed to be more consumer-centric so the writing has been on the wall for quite some time.

Ettenson, Conrado and Knowles’ research, recently published in the Harvard Business Review, which is based on a five-year study of more than 500 managers and customers, found (and I am paraphrasing) that the 4Ps model underperforms in three important ways. First, it leads to companies stressing product technology and quality when these are no longer ‘order winning’ but simply the cost(s) of entry. Second, it underemphasises, or even ignores, the solution being offered to the target customer. Third, it is not that the 4Ps tool kit is irrelevant but more that it needs to be reinterpreted.

This interesting research proposes the following approach to the 4Ps tool kit.

First, instead of ‘product’ they say focus on ‘solutions’. By this they mean that companies should define their offerings by the needs they meet not by their features, functions or technological superiority. For example, think of an iPad as a form of entertainment for the family rather than as a tablet computer with various functions. Or as a legendary Harvard Business School marketing professor Theodore Levitt put it: “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

Second, instead of ‘place’ they say focus on ‘access’. By this they mean an integrated cross-channel presence that considers a customer’s entire purchase journey, even the stage when they are just ‘evaluating’ your brand. In a previous article (Retailing’s Future published in The Times Business on February 2, 2012), I had referred to the new concept of ‘omnichannel retailing’. This relates to the recent phenomenon that retail businesses are starting to integrate all the disparate channels that affect them (websites, social media sites, blogs, forums, price comparison, product comparison, smart phone apps, TVs and more) into a ‘single seamless omnichannel experience’.

Third, instead of ‘price’ they say focus on ‘value’. By this they mean emphasising the benefits of the product relative to the price. It is a subtle difference but this change of emphasis can have a significant impact on your customers’ psyche. Sure, customers care about price but they first want to understand the value that your product or service offers before they even consider price. This change in mindset has a profound impact on a company’s strategy and the relationship it has with its customers.

Fourth, instead of ‘promotion’ they say focus on ‘education’. By this they mean providing information to customers’ specific needs at each point in the purchase journey rather than relying on advertising and the like. The truth is that today almost everybody researches a product or service, which they are interested in buying, online before going to market. Today’s customers are well informed about your product and your competitors before they even come to you. It therefore pays a company to invest in educating customers about its products since this ‘courting’ stage has become as important as the actual ‘dating’ with the customer.

Conclusion: as fond as I am of the 4Ps tool kit, I recognise that the time has come to upgrade it. With Save, I think Ettenson, Conrado and Knowles have come up with something equally as simple and memorable but contemporary. I encourage business people out there to use this simple tool kit since it will surely help you think of your products or services in a more relevant manner.

www.fenci.eu

Kevin-James Fenech is director-consultant of Fenci Consulting Ltd.