Content area
Full text
Introduction
It all started with Culliton, who declared that the role of the marketing manager was to be a 'mixer of ingredients'.1 He was followed by Borden, who coined the term 'marketing mix' in his early teaching and then in a 1964 article.2 Borden deemed that the mix included 12 elements: product planning, branding, pricing, distribution channels, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact-finding and analysis. McCarthy then crystalized the marketing mix into the highly memorable '4Ps': product, price, place and promotion, which became the standard classification, taught and studied throughout the world.3 Since the 1960s, the marketing domain has changed considerably, and there have been many proposals to improve the classification of the marketing mix. There has been a veritable proliferation of new 'Ps', as professors and practitioners of marketing have tried to keep this key term up-to-date.
One target of dissatisfaction was 'P' for promotion that was recognized by many authors as being unclear and too narrow a definition (see, eg Hartley).4 The common denominator among the various authors who examined the issue was the search for a more detailed, inclusive and realistic definition under the heading 'communication' that would include both media advertising and sales promotion. The accumulated literature was thoroughly reviewed at the start of the 1990s, which led to a broader definition of 'the communication mix' to include mass communications, personal communications and publicity.5 The 'publicity' element was also refined by many contributors who referred to the actual tool in the marketing mix as 'public relations', with publicity being an outcome of good PR (see, eg Dewitt).6 More recently, it has been realized that all the elements of the communication mix for any brand, company or institution should be seamlessly combined for maximum impact (see, eg Schultz et al. ).7 Thus, we now have the concept of 'integrated marketing communication' (IMC) that includes media advertising, sales promotion, public relations, package design, personal selling and direct marketing. In this article, the present authors will propose redefining this as IMC 2.0 to include the use of social media and the development of viral marketing communication campaigns.
Another element in the marketing mix to receive critical attention was 'P' for place, originally...