The Marketing Mix Matrix

In 2005, Chekitan Dev and Don Schultz introduced the customer focused marketing mix (SIVA) in Marketing Management. SIVA was presented as an alternative approach to McCarthy’s classic business orientated marketing mix popularly known as the 4Ps. SIVA and 4Ps are presented here as a complementary mechanisms to shape marketing practice through considering the needs of the customer within the constraint of the organization’s capacity. To that end, we present a means to combine the managerial focus of the classic 4Ps with the customer orientation of SIVA as the Marketing Mix Matrix. McCarthy (1960) suggested an entrepreneur had access to four key controllable variables – product, promotion, place and price – which could be adjusted to appeal to consumers for improved success in the market. Product is the offer the entrepreneur makes to the market that can be consumed to meet a need, provide a solution or be used in the process of creating something else of value. Diversity of form has been the hallmark of the product concept given that it incorporates physical goods, physically-orientated services that are performed on people or objects, intangible services including the internet, intangible products such as software or mp3s, experiences such as cinema and ideas including advice, knowledge or emotional outcomes. Promotion refers to the total array of deliberate communication between the marketing organization and its customers, partners or society through the use of the promotional mix. Communication between customer and market in promotion was traditionally unidirectional from the marketer to the market until the Hoffmann and Novak (1996) computer mediated communication theory, and social media facilitated conversations between customers and companies. Place refers to every mechanism involved in the coordination of a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. The logistical challenges of delivering intangible benefits to the customer through embedded services, ideas, digital products or experiences has renewed interest in the importance of place in the marketing mix. Price encapsulates the total cost that the consumer has to bear in order to acquire, access or use the product including non financial and financial factor.