Marketing going beyond

Knowledge never stays still. There is a constant evolution of knowledge as insights are built upon previous ones and the pace of knowledge growth has never been faster than in the 21st century.

The study of marketing has proven to be no exception. It has changed significantly from the days represented in shows like "Mad Men" and now relies on data-driven insights that enhance the ability of companies to connect and reach consumers far beyond what was previously possible.

First proposed in 1960, marketing began with the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. As classrooms and practitioners mastered the 4Ps, it became necessary to drill down from the admittedly shallow 4Ps to a deeper and specific set of marketing principles.

The growth of social media has opened a range of channels to reach your customer which means there is an opportunity to connect with customers at any point of the day.

The impact of sustainability and the importance placed on ethical issues means that for a brand to thrive, it must make a positive addition to society. Branding and marketing in 2022 looks nothing like it did even 20 years ago.

The crux of marketing remains the same with the 4Ps and practitioners will always have to rely on the fundamental 4Ps to develop a sound strategy.

However, beginning with the 7Ps, marketers have had to consider a growing number of dimensions.

In 2020, it was proposed that marketing can be broken into 20Ps. These 20Ps written about by David Pearson in his book represent an exhaustive set of principles that marketing practitioners must think of when they develop a holistic end-to-end marketing strategy.

They are divided within four parts: core principles (product/service, price, place, promotion, packaging), actions (planning, persuasion, publicity, push-pull, positioning), measurements (Profit, productivity, partnership, power, perception), behaviours (people, positiveness, professionalism, passion, personality).

Let's dive deeper into each of these areas:

The core principles: These are the well-recognised principles upon which all of marketing can be said to have been based on in the past 50 years. Well-researched and adopted by practitioners across the world, these principles represent a set of considerations which must be present in all marketing strategies.

This is as relevant today as it was all those years ago. Without a core understanding of how your product benefits people, you cannot sell it. Without knowing where to place your product for maximum impact and where it will reach the right people or how to promote and package it in a way that it would capture the people's minds, you cannot win against competitors.

These core principles must be well-understood and applied by practitioners before they can begin to delve into the finer aspects of a marketing strategy.

Actions: These represent a class of methods which practitioners must consider when they are trying to implement their strategy.

This involves the approach taken to persuade people. These can range from trying to appeal to their emotions to presenting a well-defined set of reasons as to why one product/service is better than the other.

For example, Coca-Cola's marketing strategy of "Open Happiness" relied on appealing to people's sense of nostalgia and memories associated with childhood.

On the other hand, toothpaste advertisements often highlight the differentiating factors between themselves and other competitors as it is often an unemotional decision.

All these strategies must be consistent with the positioning of the product in the market relative to others. The public relations department must also ensure a constant message goes out to people regarding the strategy the team is focusing on.

All of this must have a plan which develops the framework the rest relies on.

Measurements: Without the ability to measure the efforts of marketing, different strategies cannot be effectively evaluated. Thus, it is necessary to measure the impact of marketing on the entire firm instead of just a few products.

Similarly, it is necessary that the correct brand building activities are undertaken. These include the partnerships that the company enters and the power that the company can gain/utilise in the market.

All of these would affect the perception of the brand in the market and this perception would define where the product is placed and how best to take advantage of this positioning.

Behaviours: This is an evolution to the classical strategies in marketing. Once we go beyond the classic strategies, we would need to consider the effect of psychology in the overall strategy of the company.

The positivity of the company's message, the passion with which the message is delivered as well as the passion of the professionals in doing their jobs plays a major role in how your marketing strategy must be developed.

Each of the specific strategies outlined within the 4 buckets identified above could be expanded and gone into far more detail.

However, the application of any of these strategies must take place under the umbrella of a formal framework that focuses on the long-term goal of the company and acts in a way to maximise the effectiveness of the message to people.

The goal of this article has not been to delve into the 20Ps as it would get too long and the book by David Pearson does an admirable job of explaining the strategies.

The objective of this article has been the introduction of the 20Ps to the Bangladeshi market so that the state of marketing in our country evolves further and is continuously revisited.

All these strategies challenge marketers to think in more specific ways about the message they are sending and the benefits to their brand.

My boss at ANZ Bangladesh, David Robinson, who never attended any business school, used to say, "marketing is to buy (buy relationship, buy long term receivables, buy client loyalty and so on) and selling is to get rid of what you have".

One needs to think many times before repositioning their products even in a dynamic market like Bangladesh.

The author is a partner at PwC and occasionally teaches marketing at business schools. The views expressed here are his own.