The Answer is Still Distribution
OK – its been a while since I did marketing 101. So I am going to guess that the 4 P’s (even though there are now 7) were Promotion, Price, Product, and Place. I’m also going to guess that Place meant distribution.
Take three of the worlds biggest and most powerful brands:
- Coca Cola
- McDonalds
How have all three got there? The answer is not promotion (or advertising) but place (or distribution). They created a remarkable product then found a business model to disseminate it (place) effectively.
- Coke separated manufacture with distribution by creating two separate companies
- McDonald’s perfected franchising – and with a store on every street corner in the world, it now apparently makes more money through real estate than it does through sales of products
- Google deconstructed it’s website and went to where people were online rather than making people go to them.
Can you deliver whatever it is you sell more conveniently? Whether that be on or offline, or both? Get product and place right before you consider promotion. Agree?
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Kate Kendall
May 17th, 2009Like your thinking Fritz. And you’re right – ’Place’ equates to distribution and the extra three Ps (people, processes and physical evidence) are usually reserved for services marketing, but are blurring over into ‘product’. (It’s surprising how much of marketing really comes down to remembering the basics.)
Anyway, leaving the tidbits from my expensive education behind, I’m not sure if I would bundle Google in. Yes, convenience is important to Google as it is Coca-Cola and McDonalds, but I think they do exactly the opposite of what you have said – they make search users come to them! Rather than ‘deconstructing’ a website, they have created a monolith – a one-stop shop that satisfies users’ needs online.
It’s only recently that they have had to leave the Googleplex behind and head out into the socialsphere a little more because of the increased competition from social network behemoths.
From what I’ve witnessed the most critical thing above place, product and so forth is an actual audience. If you have your target and segments right in the first place then you have a better foundation to build the ‘house of Ps’ on.
Daniel Oyston
May 17th, 2009Be still my beating heart for Fritz speaks of marketing theory.
It isn’t as simple as getting product and place right before considering promotion. No offence intended, but it is a trap for young players to considers the 4 P’s in isolation. They are also referred to as The Marketing Mix … they are a combination.
It’s like when you bake a cake. You put in Flour, Eggs, Milk and Sugar. Any change in the amount of any of the ingredients and you dramatically change the end result (or offering). It’s still a cake, but some people like them sweet and others don’t etc
So what do you focus on first? The answer is the consumer. What problem or need is your offering going to address? Then you can build your 4 P’s around addressing that.
As for 7 P’s, they are relevant for service marketing. The 3 extra P’s are Physical Environment, People and Process although I recon they have relevance to any offering.
Nathan Bush
May 19th, 2009I agree that promotion should come last. If you haven’t got your product, place or price right and go in with promotion your consumers will call ‘bullshit’ very early on.
Fritz Bachen
May 19th, 2009Daniel I have to agree with nathan. The Promotion P is only necessary if all the other P’s don’t cut it. Isnt advertising the tax you pay for not having a remarkable product?? Something like that.
Kate Google have a great product and grew up in web 1.0. However, the way they have deconstructed their web presnece to be everywhere (including on this blog) is amazing. They nailed distribution – almost without us realising it.
Daniel Oyston
May 19th, 2009Fritz, advertising may indeed be the tax you pay for not having a remarkable product but if people consider “promotion” as advertising then they have some serious problems because it isn’t that narrow.
I can see your logic in trying to say there is no point in promoting something unless you have the product, price and place correct but again it isn’t an isolation thing. Your promotion crosses over to your place – think point of sale. It is a combined place and promotion effort (with more minor price and product elements) but you just cannot separate the marketing MIX into 4 separate disciplines.
As I said, I can kinda see your logic in saying you develop a product – then figure out how much to charge – then where you are going to sell it and then promote it. To highlight my point further, think about pricing and place and how they are connected – they cannot be determined in isolation. Premium priced products don’t work in every area (place).
Anonymous
May 20th, 2009Daniel Fritz here. All the P’s contribute to promotion (your price, place, and product all communicate (are all advertising in the broadest sense of the word). Get the first three correct to a very high level of finish and any extra focus on promotion is, at best icing. Google: brilliant product, brilliant pricing, brilliant place (everywhere) and bugger all promotion.
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