is still relevant and beneficial for the brand manager to know about – especially if
he or she is aware of its strengths and limitations.
In practice, managing a brand according to the theory of the marketing mix
means that companies believe that by manipulating a series of interrelated
marketing decisions the marketing manager can target and position products
within a defined market segment which will respond in a planned and desirable
manner – the consumer reacts to the marketing mix and does not engage in any
interaction with the company as such. Hence as a planning and execution tool the
marketing mix is indeed considered to be appropriate.
the marketing process consist of analysing market opportunities, researching
and selecting target markets, designing marketing programs, and organising,
implementing, and controlling the marketing effort ... [and] to transform
marketing strategy into marketing programs marketing managers must make
basic decisions on marketing expenditure, marketing mix, and marketing
allocation.
(Kotler 1997 p. 86–7)The down side is, however, that using the marketing mix as the primary marketing
tool to manage brands can result in a rather short-term focus because of the
extensive emphasis on the next transaction. The marketer is concerned with
‘hooking new clients’ and sales figures, and the exchange between the brand and
the consumer is reduced to the isolated transaction. The brand-building qualities
are, however, difficult to catch sight of, especially from the field of service
branding, the critique of this perception of transactions as isolated events has been
harsh. In service marketing it is clear that other rules of the game apply – inter-
action with the consumer is perceived as an ongoing relationship rather than
isolated transactions and individual exchanges.
The other main critique stems from the origin of the theoretical models of
exchange the approach builds on. The exchange model the marketing mix line of
thought draws on has its origin in micro-economics. The model of exchange from
micro-economics is a purely theoretical model, which means that the assumptions
and key models are the result of theorizing rather than empirical research. Hence,
since the models and theories are based on theorizing rather than empirical data,
the economic approach has been criticized for not portraying the world of
consumption adequately. Especially, how the approach deals with or rather does
not deal with the consumer has been the primary focus of critique. In the real
world, consumers do not have perfect information on the market place, and their
knowledge about different alternatives is fragmented. Furthermore, individual
preferences often violate utility theory – different people have different prefer-
ences, which cannot be explained by theories of maximization – and these consid-
erations are not incorporated in the theoretical apparatus of the economic
approach. Hence, the very nature of the Four Ps as manageable, controllable
factors combined with the intrinsic lack of market input in the model is in contrast
with the ideals of the principles of market orientation implying that all marketing
44 Seven brand approaches