The 4C’s of the Marketing Mix
Traditional marketing tactics dictate that organizations follow the 4P’s model of the marketing mix which is a more business-oriented model, as opposed to a customer-oriented one, consisting of the following variables: product, price, promotion, and place.
Modern marketing tactics, on the other hand, follow the 4C’s model of the marketing mix as proposed by Bob Lauterborn in an article written for Advertising Age back in 1990. Lauterborn declared that the 4P’s were no longer relevant and helpful in aiding today’s marketer address any real issues. Instead, he transformed the 4P’s in the variables he believed were vital.
He started with ‘consumer wants and needs’ as the primary focus of any organization’s marketing strategy. Next, he used the variable of ‘cost to satisfy’ to debunk price as the deciding factor in customers’ purchases. Following that was the third variable, convenience to buy, a vital concept in today’s world of 24/7 availability. The often neglected variable, i.e., communication was the fourth one, which implied that instead of the manipulative one-way communication of traditional marketing, organizations should invest in a two-way dialogue between the customer and the company. Therefore, the 4C’s model of the marketing mix came into existence that consists of the following…
