edf40wrjww2CF_PaperMaster:Desc
Introduction
The business environment is passing through rapid changes due to a major driver of the new economy: on-line technology. Marketing theories and models dominant today are going to be passé tomorrow. In addition, the pure essence of the marketing science is that ought to be adaptive. Borden defines the marketer as a "decider", an "artist", a "mixer of ingredients", who sometimes follows a recipe prepared by others, sometimes prepares her/his own recipe as s/he goes along, sometimes adapts a recipe to the ingredients immediately available and sometimes experiments with or invents ingredients no one else has tried. (Borden, 1964) Thus marketer is constantly adopting different principles to remain market and customer focused. In fact the idea of adaptation comes from nature; a species in order to survive has to evolve. Likewise the fundamental "marketing mix" has advanced, as the elements that make it up, its focus and how it is practiced have changed a great deal over the years.
Marketing Mix in Theory
Marketing mix is a tool organized to aid an organization in reaching its target markets and specified objectives. The model was developed by Borden (Borden, 1964), who first started using the phrase in 1949. The most famous variables are, Product, Price, Promotion and Place, first suggested by McCarthy (McCarthy, 1960), referred to as the four P's. Another set of variables was developed by Frey (Frey, 1961). He classified the marketing variables into two categories: the offering, and process variables. Booms and Bitner built a model consisting of seven P's (Booms and Bitner, 1981) for the services industries adding Participants, Physical Evidence, and Process. Recently, Lauterb ...