MARKETING MIX

Marketing Mix

Marketing Mix

Literature Review

The classic 4Ps of marketing have been questioned as inadequate (Van Waterschoot & Van den Bulte, 2006:91), and developed further into the 7Ps of Booms and Bitner (in Zeithaml & Bitner, 2004:24) and of Christopher et al. (in Palmer, 2007:32). However, the 4Ps is still the most common model of the marketing mix (e.g. Kotler & Keller, 2006:19), and it has been consistently used in chaos and complexity articles on marketing. Therefore the standard 4P model was used for this paper. In traditional marketing, product, price and place are essentially fixed over the short term, with only promotion being considered variable. In a turbulent market, though, all of the marketing mix variables should be considered as continuously variable (Morris, 2009:13). Therefore, understanding each of the marketing mix elements from a complexity perspective is important. Product is usually the first element of the mix considered, with new product development one of the most important destabilising tactics. Modis (2008) maintains that product mutations grow at the start and at the end of the product life cycle and the more there are, the better the chance that some will survive and become established. Therefore, destabilisation and chaos should be encouraged as a product development strategy. Nilson (2005:88) maintains that introducing a totally new product is one way of introducing chaos into a market, i.e. destabilising an existing market. For such an approach to be successful, a longer-term view is necessary, but the company must also be prepared to act innovatively in the short term to take advantage of unanticipated and unpredictable opportunities. This means short lead times, fast feedback loops and flexible development processes (Nilson, 2005:108). This involves product development systems that can make late design changes to better meet customers needs and that can avoid design changes entirely because design specifications and commitments can be made very late in the process (Golden, Johnson & Smith, 2005:17 and Thomke & Reinertsen, 2008:14). Numerous trials, test markets and experiments are required, producing many new lines, improvements and repositioning efforts (Morris, 2006:13). This concept of short-term adaptability and flexibility becomes even more important when the effect of information intensity is considered. Information intensive firms, such as high technology firms, have shorter product life cycles and less time to launch and establish new products successfully (Glazer, 2008:7). Although speed and flexibility is important, it must not be at the expense of unique attributes, value for money, superiority in meeting customers' needs, and excellent relative product quality, which can prevent, or slow down, entry of competitors to the market, can encourage early adoption of the product and can justify higher prices, thereby reducing the pay back period in shortened product life cycles (Cooper, 2004:2 and Benkenstein & Bloch, 2004:4). Regarding the product range in a turbulent market, new lines, additions to lines and product extensions are required (Morris, 2006:13). Millier (2009: 66) stresses the importance of encouraging chaos and destabilisation during new product development in order for proliferations to take ...