Updating The 4 P'S: The 7 P's of Marketing Mix
Updating The 4 P'S: The 7 P's of Marketing Mix
In the late 70’s it was widely acknowledged by Marketers that the Marketing Mix should be updated.
This led to the creation of the Extended Marketing Mix in 1981 by Booms & Bitner which added 3 new
elements to the 4 Ps Principle. This now allowed the extended Marketing Mix to include products that
are services and not just physical things.
1. People – are fundamental in delivering any product or service. They represent everyone
involved during the buyer’s journey, buyer themselves included: employees, partners,
customers and even the relationships established among them.
2. Processes – are all the mechanism, planning and decision making that ensure a smooth delivery
of a product or service.
3. Physical Evidence – is the service delivered and any tangible goods that facilitate the
performance and communication of the service. It represents all the environmental elements
that surround consumers during a service/product delivery. They are characterizing factors that
can positively or negatively impact the delivery experience. It is the proof that a seller has
provided (or not) what a customer was expecting. A physical evidence of an actual product is the
good itself. This dimension also comprehends the experience before and after a transaction. For
instance, invoices and souvenirs are physical evidence underlying the fact that the product or
service was delivered.
Though in place since the 1980’s the 7 Ps are still widely taught due to their fundamental logic being
sound in the marketing environment and marketers abilities to adapt the Marketing Mix to include
changes in communications such as social media, updates in the places which you can sell a
product/service or customers’ expectations in a constantly changing commercial environment.
Given the breadth, complexity, and richness of marketing, however—as exemplified by holistic
marketing. Clearly these four Ps are not the whole story anymore. According to Marketing and
management of Kotler and Keller, marketing mix needs 8Ps to represent the modern panorama.
This model is based on the concept of holistic marketing (if you visit this link, you’ll find the detailed
description at the end of the article): an interdisciplinary and interconnected subject founded on four
pillars:
Relationship marketing;
Integrated marketing;
Internal marketing;
Performance marketing.
1. People - reflects, in part, internal marketing and the fact that employees are critical to
marketing success. Marketing will only be as good as the people inside the organization. It also
reflects the fact that marketers must view consumers as people to understand their lives more
broadly, and not just as they shop for and consume products and services.
2. Processes - reflects all the creativity, discipline, and structure brought to marketing
management. Marketers must avoid ad hoc planning and decision making and ensure that state-
of-the-art marketing ideas and concepts play an appropriate role in all they do. Only by
instituting the right set of processes to guide activities and programs can a firm engage in
mutually beneficial long-term relationships. Another important set of processes guides the firm
in imaginatively generating insights and breakthrough products, services, and marketing
activities.
3. Programs - reflects all the firm’s consumer-directed activities. It encompasses the old four Ps as
well as a range of other marketing activities that might not fit as neatly into the old view of
marketing. Regardless of whether they are online or offline, traditional or nontraditional, these
activities must be integrated such that their whole is greater than the sum of their parts and
they accomplish multiple objectives for the firm.
4. Performance - We define performance as in holistic marketing, to capture the range of possible
outcome measures that have financial and nonfinancial implications (profitability as well as
brand and customer equity), and implications beyond the company itself (social responsibility,
legal, ethical, and community related).
Overall, these new four Ps actually apply to all disciplines within the company, and by thinking this way,
managers grow more closely aligned with the rest of the company.