A distinction between uncontrollable and controllable variables leads to the denomination of the latter as the four 'Ps' of the Marketing Mix. But is it actually correct to do so?
The Behavioral Response is the central point of the model and essentially refers to the purchases that customers are expected to make as a result of the environment that surrounds them and of the company's marketing actions. In addition to the purchase, there are prior responses (knowledge, understanding, differentiation, taste, preference or purchase intention) and subsequent responses to it (satisfaction, recommendation, buyback or loyalty).
The Performance Measures result from and depend on the Behavioral Response: sales, costs and profits of the company, as well as the variants and combinations of them, such as market share, cash flow, profitability or share value.
Situational Factors are all those variables external to the company that affect the behavioral responses of the market to which the company is targeting, including politics, economics, legislation, the social environment, geophysical aspects, technological development and from then the competition.
The Marketing Mix refers to the set of tools used by the company to achieve its market objectives. That is, the activities carried out or the decisions taken to achieve behavioral responses from your target market.
The Marketing Strategy of a company answers the questions of when, where and how to compete; It is defined on the three strategic decisions of Market Segmentation, Product Differentiation and Brand Positioning and gives rise to a stable structure on which the Operational Decisions of Product, Price, Place and Promotion are maintained over time.
A marketing Operating Model, such as this one by Thomas Kinnear and James Taylor, is particularly useful in locating the role that daily marketing activities play on the performance of the company.
Different authors have proposed different categorizations to group the variables of the Marketing Mix.
Albert Frey proposed its grouping into two factors: offer (product, packaging, brand, price and services) and methods and tools (distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, sales promotion and free advertising).
William Lazer and Eugene Kelly, in three: goods and services, distribution and communication.
Paul Farris and David Reibstein argue that market share results from the actions that the company undertakes in two categories, push (support at the point of sale and product availability) and attraction (consumer preference and purchase loyalty).
With a market rather than supply perspective, Robert Lauterborn renamed the 4 P's as the 4 C's: Customer (product), Cost (price), Convenience (place) and Communication (promotion).
However, the most widely accepted classification over time has been that of Jerome McCarhty known as the Four P's: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.
There are at least five things to think about when it comes to the Marketing Mix.
(1) The number of categories within which to place the marketing tools, activities or decisions that a company carries out when operating day by day to interact with its customers. This number can be anyone.
(2) The number of variables within each of those categories. In fact, McCarthy himself lists a total of 26 variables distributed within the 4 P's. For example, within Promotion includes advertising, sales force, public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing.
(3) The assignment of variables to each category. Very possibly we should reclassify the sales force within Plaza, since in reality the sellers contribute more to distribute than to promote and functionally they are located in areas related to the distribution channel and not with the activities of product, price, advertising, etc.
These three reflections leave us learning that any of the classifications is useful as a working model, but that we must have enough common sense to modify them and accommodate other points of view, useful experiences and, above all, the new tools that are incorporated. to business practice.
For example, loyalty programs that started with the airlines and that are strictly speaking a sales promotion challenge that definition by being permanent programs, rather than temporary incentives.
(4) The possibility of considering them strategic or operational, since the price, the size of the sales force or the advertising expense can be modified in the very short term and without committing large resources or modifying contractual commitments, but the opposite is required. to develop products or change distribution channels.
This reflection leads us to confirm that beyond a tenuous dividing line between the operational and the strategic, the Segmentation, Differentiation and Positioning decisions are definitely more strategic in nature than those of the Marketing Mix, which we continue to consider operational.
(5) The possibility of considering them controllable or uncontrollable, which is valid to discuss for both cases.
For example, the price is set most of the time based on the prices of competitors, negotiations with suppliers and distributors, or even based on government regulations. The same applies to Advertising, whose creativity is controlled by the available budget, by legislation and by the conditions imposed by the mass media themselves.
The company definitely does not have complete control over its marketing activities.
On the contrary, the company can influence and change situational factors. For example, fashion is fostered through the use of famous brand spokespersons. The legislation results from the lobbying efforts of companies, chambers and associations. Technological development can be translated into new products or services, or it can be 'put on hold' indefinitely pending propitious circumstances. Even the climate is controlled inside a store via air conditioning, refrigerated storage, etc.
The company definitely influences external factors to benefit the purchasing responses it seeks to promote.
In conclusion, the important thing is not in the classification of activities, tools or decisions. Beyond that, the important thing is to work under models or schemes that allow us to give meaning to the daily work of the company in its desire to develop a continuous commercial relationship with its clients.
