Ok. I admit it. I'm a marketing geek. I love to learn about marketing theories and principles, and I especially like learning about new ways to interpret and use them. After all, many of those basic principles guide our planning and implementation. So, I thought you'd be interested in an article I read recently that proposes a new approach to the traditional marketing mix (the 4 P's) that is the backbone of most marketing strategies, namely, product, price place and promotion.
The article is entitled "In the Mix: A Customer-Focused Approach Can Bring the Current Marketing Mix into the 21st Century" by Chekitan S. Dev and Don E. Schultz, Marketing Management v.14 n.1 January/February 2005. This is not the first or only article to suggest revamping the marketing mix, but the "customer-focused approach" part grabbed my attention immediately. The authors argue that the traditional mix is insufficient because it is supply driven in that it is designed to better enable marketing managers to get stuff out to customers. They prefer a demand driven approach that focuses not on the marketing managers, but on the customers. In this model, the customer's role is at the beginning of the marketing process, rather than at the end, and the entire process is aimed at solving their problems, not just getting stuff out to them. With this in mind, the authors came up with a new mix to replace the 4 P's called SIVA, which stands for Solutions (instead of Product), Information (instead of promotion), Value (instead of Price) and Access (instead of Place). As the authors summarize, "What we're proposing here is to redefine the marketing mix as customer driven, rather than manager driven...The time has come to build on that foundation [the 4 P's] with a next-generation marketing mix that will help businesses create and capture value within the realities of the 21st Century marketplace" (p.24).
If this approach is of interest to you, I would highly recommend picking up a copy of the article as the authors go into the details of the SIVA components, what they mean, and how to apply them with some good examples. In fact, I'm going to give this a try this summer when I develop my marketing plan for undergraduate services and see if it is as useful and customer centric as it appears to be.
Categories: must_reads | usable_theories
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Mixing it up with SIVA
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Libraries are more than just collections of books and other materials. Libraries are dynamic forces in their communities with the power to improve lives. Modern marketing demands that librarians look beyond their traditional roles ("outside the book") to find new ways to connect with people and further their success.
7 comments:
Another article along these lines is "Marketing malpractice: The cause and the cure" by Clayton M. Christensen, et al., Harvard Business Review (2005) 83(12):74-83. This article says, among other things, that marketers should focus less on traditional market segmentation and more on the jobs that the customers need to get done.
Thanks, Nancy! I agree, I loved the "Marketing Malpractice" article. I wrote two posts about it that might be of interest (here and here). I'd really like to hear your thoughts about it too!
Hello Jill! Greetings from Bolivia! Likewise, I'm a marketing fanatic. Thanks to your post, I got introduced to SIVA and have been trying to google it to either find a meta model or the original article "In the Mix", but no luck so far. I was wondering if you could direct me to a sales link of the article or share the article please?
Thanks!
Leonardo Byon
Student
Hey, Leonardo! Marketing Management is produced by the American Marketing Association. You can find information about accessing the "In the Mix" article, as well as a good subsequent article on SIVA, "Simply SIVA." Just enter the term SIVA in the Marketing Management Archives search box to see both results. Good luck!
Thanks! btw I just realized you're at vcu. I'm Class of 2003 McIntire UVA. I'll be starting a marketing blog soon (in spanish), so this will not be the last time we converse. See you around the blogosphere :)
¡No me digas! ¡Buena suerte! Y, por favor, mándame tu URL.
hey you...!
hope, your´re fine! I´m really interested in the topic, but not able to read the article, because I´m no subscriber of the Marketing Management journal. Would you pleeeease be so kind and send the article to f.bahlmann@gmx.de?
thanxxx so much (in advance)!
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