Marketing Mix

The term “marketing mix” was first used by Neil Borden to describe a list of important ingredients that constitute marketing programs. The marketing mix came to describe closely related decisions that managers make within the remit of marketing. Diversity of opinions has marked thinking about the marketing mix from the outset, and there is a lack of consensus about the components, usefulness, and applicability of the mix. Borden's own list is probably the longest, but the best known and the most widely used marketing mix is McCarthy's four Ps framework consisting of product, price, promotion, and place. The four Ps have been widely criticized as simplistic and misleading, especially in areas of services, relationship, and business‐to‐business marketing. More recent elaborations of the marketing mix include Booms and Bitner's services marketing mix (also referred to as the extended marketing mix). Even though academics have empirically demonstrated the importance of the mix to practitioners, some marketing theorists have questioned or even rejected it.