C5 electric car: failure of a marketing strategy

The learning outcomes will be, for you to be able to assess how digital marketing redefines the marketing mix and you should be able to evaluate digital options and, also, add value to brands and, ultimately, improve customer experiences.

The Four Ps is the very early stage for thinking about the marketing mix. Some background academic stuff for you, Jerome McCarthy in the 60s, a Canadian, and followed by the Seven Ps by Booms & Bitner and the Four Cs by Lautenborn and, of course, the Five Is by Peppers & Rogers. I'm going to talk about other forms of the marketing mix in just a second.

So, what I want to really look at is taking the four Ps and expanding them into the four Es. In fact the four Ps will add three Ps, a service mix, plus one extra P, which I'm going to introduce. The eight Ps will effectively give us the marketing mix, the new mix, which creates brands. Its important to remember that at this stage the right marketing mix is determined by the right marketing strategy. Now, this is driven by customer needs analysis and the appropriate resource allocation.

The Redefined Marketing Mix that I'm going to talk about is the four Ps or the four Es as I am going to rephrase them. So, product becomes the experience; price is the exchange; place is every place these days; and promotion means evangelism. In the online world, the four Es really take over from the four Ps. If we add to them the original three Ps and the service mix: people, physical evidence, and processes, then, we've got the old seven Ps. I am going to add 'partnerships' under the 7 Ps, because in the digital world partnerships are increasingly important and marketers have to learn how to run their own marketing merges and strategic alliances. So, partnerships are all important today. Finally, remember that the marketing mix is driven by the marketing strategy. You get that wrong and the mix is wrong.