Recalibrating The Marketing Mix.

The 4 P’s of marketing (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) is the generally accepted ‘recipe’ of areas to consider when looking at any strategic position of a product in the marketplace and whether you agree or disagree that you should add more P’s into the mix or not, such as People and Packaging etc, I feel strongly that the recipe is flawed, quite misleading and does not force the strategic marketer to think through a truly market oriented lens.
The main bone of contention I have with the concept is that it is inwardly focused. When considering the marketing strategy for any B2B goods and services a better approach should be to approach the calibration through a different lens. My suggestion is that rather than 4 P’s marketers should consider 4 C’s. So, instead of Product think about Customer Value. Instead of Price, think about Cost. Instead of Place think about Channel and instead of Promotion think about Communication. By turning these attributes on their head marketers are forced to consider the impact of their decisions around their customer’s needs and wants and will be more market oriented rather than product oriented.