The (Marketing) Apprentice

Starring: Allen Sacharine

 Welcome!

Allen Sacharine
Chief Executive

For the next twelve minutes you will have the opportunity to work
with me on the marketing team of AMSLIB NHS Trust. Your
mission (whether you accept it or not) is to give our worthy but
much neglected Trust Library a “makeover”. To do this we will use
something called “The Marketing Mix”
If you succeed you may even find yourself taking home a five-
figure salary (well you are librarians, after all!)
 The “Marketing Mix”
• The so-called Allen Sacharine
‘marketing mix’ Chief Executive
describes those
elements that can
be manipulated to
maintain
competitive edge

“Team A, perhaps you could share with us

what you have found out about “the
marketing mix””.
 Team A
Our team has discovered that “the
marketing mix” typically refers to
the 4Ps (McCarthy, 1960):
– Product,
– Place/distribution,
– Pricing and
– Promotion
As librarians we typically focus on
PRODUCT. But we would do well
to consider the other elements.
 Team A
We should ask ourselves:
• Are products distributed from a physical
PLACE, or is the intranet, or even Internet,
used for distribution?
• How do PRICES for library products or
services compare with electronic Internet
based current awareness, document delivery
or bibliographic services? Price not only
relates to fee-based services but equally to
how individual users ‘value’ the service.
• Finally, will the library actively PROMOTE its
services or risk losing business to new
information providers?
 Well that was boring and
predictable!
You are supposed to be
attracting an eager band of
innovative health librarians into
the wonderful world of
marketing – what you have
Allen Sacharine found out so far is hardly going
Chief Executive to twizzle any twin-sets!
Do you have anything else to
offer us?
 Team A
• As marketing has expanded into
service delivery, the 4Ps have
been joined by three more Ps
(Dibb and Simkin, 1994):
• PEOPLE – staff selection and
customer care training. Information
services are not likely to be
delivered by people who are
unskilled or demotivated;
• PHYSICAL EVIDENCE – décor
and ambience
• PROCESS – efficiency of the
process, delivering just-in-time not
just-in-case. (Booth, 2000).
 Four Ps? Seven Ps? Where
will it end?

Well you seem to have

more Ps than Birdseye
– is that the full sum of
your intellectual efforts
Allen Sacharine
or do you have
Chief Executive
something else to say
before your team is
frozen out?
 Team A
And there’s more……. In specifically
writing about library marketing,
Weingand (1995) adds two more
P’s:
• PRELUDE (marketing audit – the
needs analysis) and
• POSTLUDE (evaluation).
Er…Sir Allen – why are you glaring
at us like that?
 Nine Ps? Marketing Mix-Up,
more like it!

Right, by now I am
thoroughly P-ed off. I
hope that Team B has
something better to
Allen Sacharine
offer?
Chief Executive
 Team B
Well Sir Allen, our quest took us on
the High Cs, namely to the 4C's
developed by Lauterborn (1990):
• Place becomes CONVENIENCE
• Price becomes COST TO THE
USER
• Promotion becomes
COMMUNICATION
• Product becomes CUSTOMER
NEEDS AND WANTS
 Now we have gone from
Ps to Cs!
What deadwood have I been
given for this series? I suspect
there is more wood pulp in this
Board Room than they hold in
the Bodleian! If I wanted PCs I
Allen Sacharine can go to my warehouses
Chief Executive where I am up to my armpits in
PC-1512s! Team B you literally
have seconds to save
yourselves!
 Team B
• But Sir Allen, the beauty of these C's is
that they embody a much more client-
oriented marketing philosophy.
• When we deliver a library service we need
to consider how convenient this will be for
the client.
• If we emphasise what the customer really
wants (what they really, really want – but
that is Spice, not Sugar!) they challenge
previous marketing assumptions – for
example, PROMOTION is a “one-way
push“ of information which is markedly
inferior to the two-way dialogue of
COMMUNICATION.
 Well you have at least earned
a stay of execution!
I can see that the traditional idea of
marketing as reflected by the 4Ps
is too product-oriented and that a
product is no good without a
customer. However I don’t think
Allen Sacharine that the 4Cs are anything like as
Chief Executive memorable as the P-words. I think
that it is just another example of
PC gone mad!
 Let the audience decide!
• So what do you think? Consider
the two competing models of “the
marketing mix” (4Ps vs 4Cs) and
how they might apply to your
service. Which is likely to be
more useful when you are
planning to give your library
service a competitive edge?
Record your thoughts in your
portfolio.
 Sleep well…
• …And make your decision
carefully and wisely…
• After all the survival of your
service is at stake – will you
survive the ProMISe FOLIO
Course into Week Three or will
you hear those dreaded
words….? 
You’re Fired!
 References - 1
• Booth, A (2000). Marketing a service. In: Booth, A &
Walton G (Eds). Managing knowledge in health
services. (pp. 162-172). London: Library Association.
http://www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/mkhs/chapters.htm
• Dibb S & Simkin L, The Marketing Casebook,
Routledge, 1994
• Lauterborn, B (1990) New marketing litany: four Ps
passe: C-words take over. Advertising Age. 61 (41),
26.
 References - 2
• McCarthy, J. (1960 1st ed.), Basic Marketing: A
managerial approach, 13th ed., Irwin,
Homewood Il, 2001.
• Weingand, DE. (1995) Preparing for the
Millennium: The Case for Using Marketing
Strategies. Library Trends. 43(3):295.
Available at:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1387
/is_n3_v43/ai_16709298
 Additional Reading
• Marketing mix (From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_mix
• Webber S (2005) Marketing Mix
http://dis.shef.ac.uk/sheila/marketing/mix.htm