MORE EVOLUTION THAN REVOLUTION

T0 the question of whether old marketing concepts are dying in the face of new market
dynamics, Sharad Sarin maintains that core concepts are being evolved to suit new
challenges.

INTELLECTUAL productivity seems to be out-pacing the dynamism of the market

place. The marketing repository is overflowing with concepts, jargons, and analytical
frameworks. From mass to direct marketing; from 'transaction' to relationship marketing;
from satisfaction to customer delight appear to be the sweep of the pendulum. Yet, in
spite of the hoopla, it appears that new is more 'evolutionary' than 'revolutionary'.

Take for instance the evergreen concept of 'marketing mix'. Credit goes to Professor
Neil Borden of Harvard Business School (HBS) to have coined the term "marketing mix"
around mid-40s. The idea to use marketing mix came from the research on marketing
costs by James Culliton, another professor at HBS. Culliton's idea of calling a marketing
executive as a "mixer of ingredients" appealed to Borden enough to label a long list of
marketing decisions as "elements of marketing mix". This helped him highlight the
importance of "variability" and "interdependence" amongst a large number of inter-
related decisions which a marketer needed to formulate his marketing strategies under
different and varying circumstances of the market place.

This very apt use of marketing mix became popular in no time and helped a great deal
in understanding the marketing task. But it took nearly 15 years for it to be formalized as
the famous 4Ps by Professor E. Jerome McCarthy. Since then, the "4P" framework has
remained a bedrock of marketing strategy.

But around the 1980s, when interest grew in service marketing, authors felt that an
important element with respect to services marketing was missing-the people "P". This
then became the fifth "P" of the marketing mix. Recognizing the importance of packaging
in the marketing of branded packaged products, practitioners and researchers recom-
mended that packaging be treated as a separate variable. So, packaging was removed
from 'product' and this gave birth to the sixth "P" of the marketing mix.

Business Today – Brand Equity May 1995

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 Soon, this sixth "P" was modified to include "physical evidence" in the case of services
marketing. The six "Ps", however, appeared inadequate when researchers discovered that
consistency in services cannot be ensured without the support of "process". This brought
in the seventh "P".

One wonders when the "P" molecule will cease to grow! But it is interesting to
recognize that the concept had the inner propensity to adapt to newer realities. The
current developments in relationship marketing are, once again, forcing a review of the
4Ps or the 7P-framework and its validity and relevance. Some scholars and practitioners
are arguing that the marketing mix framework is not at all adequate in the context of
relationship marketing. The debate is on and it is once again, testing time for the
marketing Ps.

A leading Indian business fortnightly, in its May l995 issue, carried a cover feature
which included a detailed coverage of six laws and a colloquium of the pioneers. In brief,
the concept suggests enveloping a tangible product with service that would provide value
to the customer. By transforming products into services – be they electricity generators
or hope raisers like cosmetics - the advocates of morph marketing feel proud of
expanding the horizons of marketing strategies.

The contents and rhetoric of morph marketing appear familiar to Professor Theodore
Levitt’s article: Marketing Success through Differentiation of Anything (Harvard
Business Review, January-February, 1980). The article introduced the ‘total product
concept’. The concept provided an excellent framework of viewing the strategy along
four levels generic product, expected product, augmented product and potential product.
In the 80s, Levitt observed, “The new competition is not between what companies
produce in their factories, but between what they add to their factory output in the form
of packaging, services, advertising, customer advice, financing, delivery arrangements
warehousing, and other things that people value.” Similarity of suggestions of 1980 and
1995 begged the obvious question what is so new? (See chart).

The chart highlights the important milestones in the expansion of the base concept,
that of providing a package of product and services to the customer. It was useful in the
70s, and it is still useful now. Around early 1980s, Philip Kotler in his famous text book
on marketing introduced a three-level product concept to provide value to the customer.
This provided a sharper understanding of the core benefit. It also acknowledged the
importance of developing a system’s view towards marketing.

Then came Levitt’s suggestion of the total product concept to achieve differentiation
of anything - be it commodity or a personal product. The introduction of “expected
product” was an excellent recognition of reality to be in business, a marketer needs to
provide both the generic and expected products. But, realizing that augmentation would
soon become a part of the expected product, Levitt introduced the fourth level of
potential product, a perennial source of ideas.

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 Around 1987, Tom Peters refined Levitt’s concept further by naming the four levels
as "Levitt Rings". By manipulating the areas of rings, he made a powerful case of
changing the mindset away from the ‘generic product and expected’ to ‘augmented and
potential products’ This alone, according to Tom Peters, holds the power of providing
superior and undreamt values to the customers. Kotler, in 1993, expanded the total
product concept further by adding an inner-most level of ‘core benefit’, surrounded by
the four Levitt rings. As things stand today, this five-level conceptualization appears to
be very dynamic to provide newer values to the customers. Who knows when the sixth
ring would be added !!

At this stage then, it should not be difficult to ask why “morph marketing” should be
called a new concept. Perhaps the advocate feels that inspite of the suggestions in the
past, service, as a dimension has not been effectively utilized in the situation of
household marketing. They seem to invigorate a dormant variable to deliver value to the
customer. A perfectly legitimate pursuit and convincing justification for a new concept.

Almost similar is the example of the evolution of brand equity. The importance of
powerful brands have been known over several decades to companies such as Nestle,
Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble and Philip Morris. Yet, the concept of brand equity
blossomed only around the 80s. There was a time when brand awareness was considered
enough. Soon brand personality and brand loyalty became important. Then the Unique
Selling Proposition (USP) and now, the brand positioning. All pooled together have now
become ‘Brand Equity'. How and when the brand equity concept would be further
enveloped to evolve into something newer is difficult to predict. But that it will happen is
almost certain. Will it be old (conceptually) or will it be new? Let the debate continue.

Some may label these evolutionary ventures as gimmickry and unnecessary ap-
pendage. A professor of management, reacting to the" old wine in new bottle" criticism,
observed that, by and large, the attempts (of new concepts, jargons or of their
expansions), may appear to be like re-inventing the wheel ; but then after each round, the
wheel seems to be landing on a higher level of learning or enlightenment. This appears to
be an apt description of the payoffs from expansion, besides maintaining a relationship
between the old and the new.

Examined differently, the modifications or expansions appear to be much needed re-

vitalizers. In some sense, knowledge is like a bicycle-if not pedaled, it would stagnate
and decay. Fortunately, in marketing, we have had a very active breeding ground.
Marketing mix, product life cycle, segmentation, positioning, marketing warfare, niche
marketing, brand equity, relationship marketing, business-to-business marketing, social
marketing, macro marketing, direct marketing, and now, morph marketing, are a few
handy examples of this dynamism in marketing litany.

Challenge, however, is to create enduring concepts. One needs to distinguish between a

'fad' concept which may last for a short duration, and an 'enduring' concept which should
be capable of being constantly renewed, and does not become outdated with the passage
of time. Concepts like marketing mix, the total product concept, are excellent examples

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of enduring concepts.

Pressures to outperform the competition are the major challenges. Necessity seems to
be driving the expansions and evolution of new concepts. But why the new does not
appear to be new is to recognize that all energies are focused around the basic tenet of
marketing - getting and keeping the customer. No concept in marketing can ever appear
to distance itself from the customer, and hence, at times, the feeling: old wine in a new
bottle,

Business Today (May 1995)

Morph Marketing
Product and Service Envelop
(Transforming product into service)

Philip Kotler - 1993

Five Product Levels
Core benefits + four of Ted Levitt’s
Source: Marketing Management – 7th ed. 1993

Tom Peters - 1987

Levitt Rings (Thriving on Chaos)
Providing superior service emphasize the intangible
Source: Thriving on Chaos, 1987

Theodore Levitt - 1980

Total Product Concept: Four Levels
Generic – Expected – Augmented - Potential
Marketing Success through Differentiation of Anything

Philip Kotler - 1980

Three Levels of Products
Core – Formal - Augmented
Source: Marketing Management 4th edn, 1980

Product + Service Packages

The Base/Root concept
Source: ‘Product and Service Package to Morph Marketing’

The author is Professor of Marketing and General Management at XLRI, Jamshedpur.