The need for 6Ps for strategic marketing

FOR decades, marketers thrived on the use of 4Ps — Product, Price, Place, Promotion — to conduct their Tactical Marketing Planning.

- By Philip Kotler

Marketing guru Philip Kotler autographs a book authored by him

Now we have to ask whether the 4P marketing mix is a sufficient starting framework for strategic marketing planning. Or is an expanding 6P marketing mix a better way to conduct Strategic Marketing Planning?

In 1960, Professor Jerry McCarthy published Basic Marketing in which he introduced the 4P marketing framework. Jerry had studied marketing under Professor Richard Clewett at Northwestern University. Clewett taught students that marketing consists of making decisions on product, price, promotion and distribution. Clewett held that the heart of marketing laid in distribution, the setting up of channels of distribution. Jerry decided to replace “distribution” with “place” so that marketers could use the more convenient toolset of the 4Ps. Marketers were especially competent in “place” marketing.

I chose to use the 4P framework in writing my marketing textbooks. I went further and applied the 4P framework not only to commercial organisations but to all organisations — such as colleges, museums, government agencies, etc. All organisations seek marketing results. I called this “broadening marketing”.

More recently, I recognised the need to add a few more marketing tools to the 4Ps. Marketers needed to add service and brand to their product thinking. What good is a product if it doesn't include good service? What good is the product if it doesn't exhibit a strong brand? Then I added one more tool to price, namely Incentives. Altogether, I added 3 more marketing tools. Unfortunately, these three new tools did not begin with the letter P.