12.21.2004

Back to the ABCs--Make That the Three Ps--of Marketing

Marketing in America is adrift today. More than 90% of all new products launched are not on the shelf two years later. Manufacturers are scrambling to maintain brand share in the face of a sea of private-label entries. Consumers are showing less and less willingness to pay a premium for "national brands."

A hundred years ago we had it figured out. Marketing was about product, place, and price. Get a good product to a place where someone could buy it for a price that reflected the intrinsic value of the product and how difficult (or dangerous) it was to get it to the buyer.

In the decades since, while creating more product and place options than we can effectively use, we've forgotten the basics of product, place, and price. In the face of this myriad of options, consumers are reverting to a simpler approach to making choices.

Consumers, it seems, haven't forgotten the basics of product, place, and price. Just as we followed consumers into the frontiers of cable television, online shopping, warehouse clubs, and dollar stores, now we must follow them again as they change the rules of the game to fit their needs.

Read how to profit from the three Ps of marketing.


By Ben Ball, PROMO

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