Discussion Board Forum 2
Stephanie Green
School of Business, Liberty University
BUSI 745: Marketing for Competitive Advantage
Dr. Gary Eaton
January 31, 2021
The Marketing Mix Revisited: Towards the 21st Century Marketing
The 4P’s (product, price, promotion, and place) marketing mix framework dates back to
1950’s. It has become a trusted conceptual platform of practitioners that is simple, memorable,
and practical framework for decision-making and has helped to empower firms to assess
competition inside the industry by making vital improvements that will give the company a
competitive edge. However, there have been many debates about its value and future. With the
growth and evolution of technology and systems, new marketing thematic entities have emerged
(e.g., strategic marketing and consumer marketing) to better reach consumers. With the evolution
in technology, consumers are becoming more adroit in researching and finding the best prices
and products for their needs; as a result, consumers are less responsive to traditional marketing
techniques. Companies have to become more created in their marketing techniques, which also
helped the development of new marketing thematic entities. In addition, most issues found in the
newly developed market thematic entities raise questions about the 4P’s marketing mix relevancy
and show several weaknesses of the 4P’s marketing mix, such as ignoring the human factor, lack
of strategic dimensions, offensive posture, and lack of interactivity. Constantinides (2010)
examines the 4P’s marketing mix and lists numerous alternatives that other researchers offer as
an alternative, such as the 4C’s (customer needs, convenience, customer’s cost, and
communication), which focuses on customer orientation and the 5V’s (value, viability, variety,
volume, and virtue). While there are many valid debates on the value of the 4P’s, Constantinides
(2010) recommends additional research in formulating a better marketing methodology that will
optimally meet the marketing needs of today (Constantinides, 2010).
The Elements of Value
Customer value is important for companies to understand in order to find the right
combination of value to increase customer loyalty and increase revenue for the company.
Customer value can be broken into four main categories: functional, emotional, life changing,
and social impact. These main categories correlate with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which
includes self-actualization, self-esteem needs, love and belongingness needs, safety and security
needs, and physiological needs. Since customer purchasing activity evolve around those values,
companies can focus on satisfying those values to attract and keep customers. Furthermore, some
values are ranked higher than others depending on the customer, so it is critical to the success of
companies to understand which values are important in the industry. Based on the elements of
value pyramid for the four main categories of customer value, functional (e.g., simplifies,
reduces risk, saves time, organizes, quality, avoids hassles, etc.) and emotional (e.g., reduces
anxiety, nostalgia, wellness, attractiveness, etc.) make up the largest part of the pyramid, which
means that customers find those values more important than the social impact and life changing
values. This pyramid helps companies understand which values are more important for
consumers and can help them increase the value of their products by demonstrating that the
products meet the consumers values. As a result, companies can use it to enhance its brands,
increase its buyer base, improve its products, and improve its marketing techniques to target
consumers (Almquist et al., 2016).
The CEO of Levi Strauss on Leading an Iconic Brand Back to Growth
Chip Bergh has took over as the CEO of Levi Strauss. During that time, the Levi brand,
although iconic, had low sales and was underperforming. Bergh spoke with many employees and
mangers the first few months of him taking on the role as CEO. He discovered that the company
had numerous issues. Employees lacked direction as they did not understand the strategic goal or
mission of the company. They also did not understand how their work linked to the company’s
strategy or what the overall financial status of the company was. If employees do not understand
the strategy and goals of the company, it harms the company’s performance. In addition, if
employees do not understand how their work impacts the company or helps the company achieve
its goal, employees are less motivated and productive. Another issue that Bergh discovered was
that the Levi brand did not have a catchy tagline that helped promote its brand or summarized the
goal of Levi. After speaking with one of Levi’s clients who said, “You wear different pants, yet
you live in Levi’s” (Bergh, 2018, p.35), Bergh introduced the “Live in Levi’s” slogan for
promoting its brand. This slogan was not only catchy but also summarized Levi’s product goal of
comfortable, practical clothing. Through this examination of the company and its issues, Bergh
developed a four-part strategy (build the profitable core, expand more, becoming a leading
omnichannel retailer, and achieve operational excellence) to help guide the company to improve
its operational performance. Bergh chose those four focus areas because he saw that while Levi’s
products for men were profitable, the products for women were barely taking a portion of the
market share. This was an area that Levi could improve on as well as to sell other products than
jeans, such as shirts and jackets, which the company already offered but was not well-known. As
a result, the steps that Bergh took helped to increase the Levi brand recognition and increase its
performance and growth (Bergh, 2018).
Product Improvement Based on Customer Reviews
With the evolution of technology, companies have found a better way to collect honest
opinions and reviews about what their products and what consumers want. Using social media,
where consumers share their experiences, reviews, needs, and preferences, companies can better
understand customer value and needs. Companies can use that data collection to their advantage
by identifying which product features consumers want or dislike (e.g., multiple colors,
customizable, etc.), measuring customer preferences, and analyzing the categorization of product
features. In addition, by analyzing that the data collected from social media as well as the
traditional data collection methods, companies are able to effectively guide their product
development and tailor the products to meet the needs and preferences of their targeted
consumers (Wang et al., 2020).
Conclusion
These articles summarize different aspects of the marketing focus: marketing mix
framework, consumer value, brand recognition, and product development and improvement.
There are many moving parts in the marketing strategy. All the parts must be reevaluated on a
continual basis as technology and the market evolve with time. As seen in all of the articles,
technology and consumer needs change and, with every change, comes a need to change with it,
such as implementing a new marketing mix framework, adjusting and improving the product or
service to optimally meet consumer needs and preference, and adjusting a company’s strategy to
tackle the changes in the industry. It is only by adapting to the changes in the industry that
companies can remain prosperous; lack of adapting can lead to their failure (Bouwman et al.,
2019).
References
Almquist, E., Senior, J., Bloch, N. (2016). The elements of value. Harvard Business Review,
94(9), 46-54. https://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?
url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=bth&AN=117516203&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Bergh, C. (2018). The CEO of Levi Strauss on leading an iconic brand back to growth. Harvard
Business Review, 96(4), 33-39. https://ezproxy.liberty.edu/login?
url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=bth&AN=130331031&site=ehost-live&scope=site
Bouwman, H., Nikou, S., de Reuver, M. (2019). Digitalization, business models, and SMEs:
How do business model innovation practices improve performance in digitalizing SMEs?
Telecommunications Policy, 43(9). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2019.101828
Constantinides, E. (2010). The marketing mix revisited: Towards the 21st century marketing.
Journal of Marketing Management, 22(3-4), 407-438.
https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1362/026725706776861190
Wang, A., Zhang, Q., Zhao, S., Lu, X., Peng, Z. (2020). A review-driven customer preference
measurement model for product improvement: Sentiment-based importance performance
analysis. Information Systems and e-Business Management, 18, 16-88. https://doi-
org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1007/s10257-020-00463-7
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