The Importance of 4Ps in a

Marketing Mix
The 4Ps of marketing — Product, Price, Place and Promotion — are distinct
factors that marketers can influence in order to create a meaningful product or
service and market it to a defined audience. The marketing mix applies to every
stage of a product’s life cycle. It's commonly known that Nike is a premium brand,
selling well-designed and expensive products. It is one of the largest sellers of
athletic footwear in the world. Let's look into this sports giant in detail, to get a
better understanding of its 4Ps

Let's learn about the second P of the 4P model – Price

In the above videos, you learnt the first two Ps of Marketing Mix: Product and
Price. With the example of the Nike brand, you understood how product features
help you to market a premium product to your consumer. You also learned the
important factors to consider when deciding your pricing strategy, namely:

1. Customer's perceived value of the product

2. Competitive pricing

3. Revenue generation cost 

In the next video, you will deep dive into the remaining two elements of 4P:
Promotion and Place
So you just learnt how Nike uses the 4Ps of the marketing mix in its strategy to
promote the brand.  One such way Nike does that is by hosting promotional events.
Websites are a great tool for promoting a brand. Hence, Nike personalises
its websites. The brand, to lure its customers, uses distinctive logos and advertising
slogans. All these elements come together to create a strong brand. 

In the next segment, let's learn how the 4 P's are dependent on each other.

Q; Analyse the Marketing Mix

Analyse the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion) of Uber.

A: Uber's product is its service of letting people book cabs on-demand. It has on-demand
taxis for various different consumer segments like UberGO, UberXL. Uber follows a pricing
that is market driven, i.e. determined by the demand and supply match of consumers and
cabs. This often time results in surge pricing. Consumers can book these on-demand taxis
through Uber's mobile app on iOS and Android. Some third-party apps like Tapzo also let
you connect and book taxis. When Uber entered India, it tied up with different celebrities,
who rode Secret Uber rides around the cities of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Once an initial
buzz was created, Uber effectively used referrals which would win existing users heavy
discounts and free rides.

How are the 4Ps

Interdependent?
The 4Ps of marketing are linked to each other in many ways. High-quality products
often go together with high prices, exclusive distribution and explicit ways of
promotion. While designing a product, these interdependencies need to be taken
into account by marketing managers. The 4Ps need to be aligned so that they
complement each other to send a consistent message, which secures the desired
position in the minds of the target consumers.

So, in this video, you saw how 4Ps can be used together to send a strong,
consistent, powerful, message to consumers about a product.  

Remember the positioning of the automobile industry you saw in the last session? 
Well, one of the ways Pontiac can create its positioning is through the consistent
use of the 4Ps. Let's see how Pontiac did it.

Let’s take the example of Starbucks to see how the 4Ps interact with each other to
create a complementary marketing mix.

Starbucks is primarily known for its great coffee as well as customer experience.
For example, in the US it gives consumers the option to get their own coffee recipe
made by the store.  Not only this, but Starbucks also keeps innovating and, over the
years, it has added teas, smoothies, frappuccinos, and food items to its menu.

Because of this, Starbucks charges a premium amount for its products, as

compared to its competitors such as McDonald’s Premium Roast or Cafe Coffee
Day. Starbucks puts great product and consumer experience at its forefront. Thus,
its premium pricing strategy gives it a sense of exclusiveness.  

 
Its strategic alliance with the TATA group enabled Starbucks to leverage TATA’s
wide distribution network, all-country reach, and faster government approvals, to
set up stores in India. Due to its exclusiveness, Starbucks targets only Tier - I
cities, unlike Cafe Coffee Day. Therefore, you will find  Starbucks cafes only in
cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, and Pune. Even within
these cities, you would find them in areas with a high density of individuals with
high disposable incomes, for instance, malls or international airports in Delhi and
Mumbai. In fact, the very famous Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai has a
Starbucks.  

Due to the exclusive nature of the Starbucks brand, its promotion channels don’t
include reaching out to the masses through TV commercials. Instead, Starbucks
has a huge Facebook following and also has a Twitter handle to engage the digital
audience. Apart from this, word-of-mouth publicity about its great customer
experience also helps in communicating about the brand. 

In recent years the concept of 4Ps has been extended to 7Ps where additional Ps
have been used by marketers to complement the use of the original 4Ps. Let's hear
about this

When you think of fast food, you think of McDonald's and Domino's. When you
think of sports, names such as Nike and Adidas come to mind. When you think of
coffee, you think of Starbucks and Cafe Coffee Day. These brands have
manipulated our perception to the point that their brand names appear first when an
individual is asked to mention the 'top of mind' recall in their category. Through
excellent use of a harmonised 4P and 7P marketing mix, these brands have
been able to position themselves in the minds of the consumers, unlike many
others.

Here is a template for the marketing mix that you can use for any brand.

Interdependence between 4Ps

Consider a brand like Louis Vuitton which sells premium-quality fashion accessories,
promotes itself on famous fashion magazines and sponsors major global fashion
events. Now, identify the appropriate strategy for the other two Ps.

Feedback:
Correct! Louis Vuitton is a premium brand that emphasises on producing 100% pure
leather accessories. It hires the finest craftsman and makes sure that all its products
are unique as well as are aesthetically designed. It follows a premium pricing to
support its production of high-quality products. Louis Vuitton is targeted towards
individuals with high disposable incomes to afford its premium price. Therefore, the
most effective way to reach out to this segment is to use an exclusive distribution, for
example, Louis Vuitton stores are present in luxury malls such as UB City in
Bangalore, DLF Emporio in Delhi.

Extension of 4Ps
If 4Ps of a restaurant is

Product: Quality, Physical Features, Packaging, Taste

Place: Outlet locations

Promotion: Offline and Online Marketing

Price: Discounts, Tips, and Standard Prices

Describe how the additional 3Ps (People, Physical Evidence, and Process) can create
additional value for the customers. (Word limit: 60)

A: People - Educating waiters about the menu for better service, investing in top quality chefs
 Physical Evidence - Cleanliness, locality, hygienic place, ambience

Process - Takeaway orders, payments through card, integrating mobile ecommerce platforms
for payments

Additional Examples
Let’s take the example of the Japanese automobile brand - Toyota.

Product

Toyota manufactures products ranging from affordable automobiles to car engines

to vehicle spare parts and accessories. Specifically, Toyota produces two types of
automobiles:

1. Toyota Automobiles, i.e. the vehicles that are produced under the brand name of
Toyota such as the Toyota Innova, Toyota Corolla.

2. Lexus automobiles, i.e. the vehicles that are owned by the luxury carmaker
division of Toyota, i.e. Lexus, and sold under the same brand name. For example,
Toyota Lexus RX450H hybrid SUV was launched in India in March 2017 and was
priced at Rs 1.07 crore - Rs 1.09 crore.

Toyota not only offers tangible products but also provides services to its
customers. For example, Toyota has service centres in Hyderabad, Chennai and
other parts of India that provide roadside assistance, repair services.

 
Toyota products are of high-quality and are durable, reliable and safe. It also
delights its consumers by providing them with great post-purchase service through
its service centres. Using Toyota’s example, you can see how as a marketing
manager, you can create a diverse product mix that reaches out to a wider audience
and also, targets extremely affluent individuals.

Price

One of the ways Toyota reaches to a wider audience is by having a presence across
all different segments of cars such as small segment, midsize cars, sedans, SUVs.
These Toyota automobiles are priced competitively depending upon the segment it
is competing in. For example, Toyota Etios Liva is priced at around 5.5 Lakh (on-
road) in India. The other cars that compete in the small segment are Honda Brio
(4.8 Lakhs), Ford Figo (5.1 Lakhs), Maruti Suzuki Wagon R (4.3 Lakhs).
Similarly, Toyota Corolla Altis is priced at around Rs. 20 Lakhs (on-road) in India.
It competes with other Sedans such as Skoda Octavia (Rs. 21 Lakhs) and Chevrolet
Cruze (Rs. 16.5 Lakhs)

Toyota also follows a value-based pricing for its luxury car vehicles, i.e. Lexus
automobiles. Lexus automobiles are priced higher as the company targets
customers who typically seek the high quality and the aspiration of owning a
luxury vehicle. Such consumers perceive Lexus automobiles to provide this
aspiration and are, therefore, willing to pay a premium for it. Therefore, by
following a combination of competitive-based pricing and value-based pricing,
Toyota is able to support its product element of the marketing mix.

 
Place
The majority of the Toyota products, i.e. its automobiles are sold through
authorised dealerships. The rest of its products such as the vehicle spare parts and
accessories are sold through third-party retailers. This makes it easy for consumers
to get spare parts and opt for original Toyota accessories while they get their car
repaired. This is also one of the ways how Toyota delights its consumers during the
post-purchase phase. To further delight its customers, in 2015 Toyota expanded its
distribution network by selling its accessories online through its
website www.toyotapartsconnect.in. This made sure that Toyota was able to reach
out to the tier -II and tier-III cities.

The online distribution network complements Toyota’s efforts to reach a wide

audience, not only with its range of automobiles and competitive pricing but also
through its distribution network.  

Promotion

Toyota uses different promotion channels to reach its target audience. It uses
promotion channels such as personal selling, advertising, public relations. The
sales personnel in Toyota’s authorised dealerships personally promote Toyota’s
products to potential consumers.

Keeping up with its efforts to reach a wide audience as you saw previously, Toyota
in 2012 signed Virat Kohli as its brand ambassador, one of the most recognisable
names in Indian Cricket. Toyota then launched the ‘Waku Doki’ campaign that
featured Virat Kohli in multiple TV commercials promoting different Toyota cars.
You can watch the TV commercials here - Ad 1, Ad 2. Besides TV commercials,
Toyota also advertised this campaign in print as well as radio. In fact, Toyota also
promoted this campaign digitally by setting up the website
www.toyotawakudoki.in (It has now become inactive as this promotion is over). It
then further asked users to respond to what they thought Waku Doki meant. You
can watch the ad here - What is Waku Doki?

In summary, Toyota is a perfect case of how a brand perfectly complemented its

marketing mix by making sure that all its 4Ps aligned well with each other

Q: 4 P’s Assessment
Analyse the marketing mix for the brand Zomato. 

Product:

Zomato, as a product, has a lot to offer: Basically, it is a restaurant review and food
delivery application that allows users to order food from the comfort of their homes. It
also lets users discover food hubs in their localities for dining out and allows them to
pay through the app. Its gold membership provides users various offers such as 1+1 on
food orders and 2+2 on drinks.

In addition, its app provides users with various services, including live tracking of their
orders and providing reviews and comments on the nature of each delivery. It also
provides information about nearby events, such as nightlife and shows, to push user
engagement.

Price:

With respect to the pricing strategy, Zomato offers its users the paid gold membership
for availing its premium services such as 1+1 on food or up to 20% discounts on
restaurant bills. The funds it generates through this are used to provide timely offers,
app promotions and for increasing user engagement through various shows. Zomato
also leverages its strong web presence (as the number one restaurant review application
in India) to advertise platform for restaurants on its app, who in turn pay it the
advertising fee. Zomato also advertises various special events held at restaurants, for
which it earns a fixed commission.

Place:

Firmly promoting itself as an app, Zomato is present on the App store. It also has a
website, which leads users to install the app. Moreover, because of its partnership with
numerous restaurants, it can place some of its brand-related visual elements such as
stickers or ‘Zomato Gold’ partner tags at these places. These are also present as
packaging material on all deliveries made through their app and on their recognisable
delivery uniforms as well.
Promotion:

Zomato promotes its brand across all forms of social media such
as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as mass media channels such as television
and newspapers. Its increased amount of call-to-action carousel ads on Facebook not
only forces users to go to the app quickly but also keeps them updated regarding the
ongoing offers on the app. On Twitter, it is actively involved in user affairs to improve its
customer relations.
On Instagram, its stories keep users aware and engaged on a regular basis. It also has
various TV ads that connect better with the users, including the ‘On Time or Free’ ad
that enlightens users about the Zomato’s timely deliveries. When it comes to its season
campaign, it collaborated with the IPL team Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to
promote itself in IPL 2019.

Introduction to 4Ps - Product

Which of the following options can be best described as the Flipkart’s product with
regards to its 4Ps?

Feedback: Online retail service

Correct! Flipkart's main product is not the types of products it sells on its platform,
but the service it provides to consumers to shop online.
Introduction to 4Ps - Promotion
Many organisations like Microsoft make donations to charities, which brings a lot of
goodwill to the corporation when publicised. This form of promotion of the
corporation can best be classified as.

Feedback: Public relations

These donations, when publicised through media outlets, intend to create a healthy
relationship between the organisation and the public.