Question

The shifting from the 4Ps of the conventional marketing mix to the 4Cs of the sustainability marketing mix has been discussed. Identify the primary change this makes in the producer-consumer relationship and explain how this change alters the job of the marketer.

Answer 1

The first element of the traditional marketing mix is the product. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2009), a product is "anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need".

Some of the important differences that the Internet brought to the products are the customization and personalization - two integral processes that give power to customers in designing their own product that will satisfy their needs and wants (Thirumalai & Sinha, 2011). By providing "the right content in the right format to the right person at the right time" (Tam & Ho, 2005), companies are trying to provide solutions to their customers, rather than selling them a single product. With this, the companies create value - "the net worth to customers from buying and using seller's product" (Woodruff, 1997) and reflect closeness to their customers, generate appreciation of benefits that are desired by customers in terms of style, choice, uniqueness etc (Dennis, Fenech & Merrilees, 2005).

The second element of the traditional marketing mix is the price - "everything given by the acquirer in terms of money, time and effort to obtain the product "(Yudelson, 1999). However, price is just one of the costs that need to be bear in mind, when a customer wants to buy something (Olivedia.com, 2011). During the purchasing process, many different types of costs such as those for searching the product, transportation, usage costs can occur.

Today, the by Internet ordering, the customers' transportation costs can be eliminated (Cheng & Nault, 2007). Furthermore, low search costs relating to using the Internet for search information prior purchasing are highly-relevant factors that affect the use of the Internet (Jepsen, 2007).

Promotion is the third element of McCarthy's marketing mix. Bunn and Banks (2004) define the promotion as a set of tactical marketing techniques that are formed within a strategic framework, with the ultimate goal of adding value when reaching specific sales and marketing objectives.

Traditionally, the process of communication was consisted of: advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations and personal selling (Winer, 2009). This traditional model was founded on the belief that marketer has the whole control of the information flow from the company through the media, to the consumers. Furthermore, these mass media-based tools create one-way communication that is based on informing, telling and educating audiences with an ultimate goal to sell the product (Ballantyne, 2004).

According to Fill (2006), the new technology has given a rise to a number of different media and enabled new interactive forms of communication. Furthermore, he argues that beside the traditional promotional methods, many other radically different methods have emerged that provide opportunities for people to interact with those organizations with whom they are willing to be involved and to whom they give permission to send messages. Moreover, this shift towards interactivity and digital themes (Winer, 2009) is referred to as a "hypermedia" environment (Hoffman & Novak, 1996) and had a drastic impact on the nature of the communications model (Hoffman & Novak, 2009).

The dialogue with the customers is hold through various new media. Internet advertising, m-commerce, podcasts are just few outcomes from the Internet revolution (Winer, 2009). None arguably, the most important media of nowadays living is the social media. Kietzmann et al (2011) argue that the development of the Facebook, Twitter and other sites represents a substantial and pervasive change in the ways of communication between organizations, communities and individuals. They also suggest that this event represents a huge challenge for firms, mainly because many established management methods are not suitable to deal with the customers who expect from firms to listen, engage and provide feedback to their needs.

Convenience is Lauterborn's last element of the marketing mix. Instead of focusing on the ways in which companies manage inventories and "placing the products where they want them to be"(Dennis, Fenech & Merrilees, 2005), the objective of the last C is to make the purchasing process of a good as convenient as possible for the customer (Hamilton, 2005).

In the online marketing, everything is about convenience. The Internet provides an opportunity for customers to purchase their products from their homes (Smith, 2003). Moreover, it eliminates regional and local protections and allows consumers to buy from anyone in any region of the world (Kung, Monroe & Cox, 2002).

A major challenge in the e-commerce is the fact that goods have to be available quickly to the customer. For that purpose, the internet marketing has caused the process of disintermediation - "removing the middleman to deal direct with customers instead through agents, distributors and wholesalers", which allows companies to interact more directly with their customers and develop a deep understanding of when and where do customers want the products and services (Chaffey, 2009).

Note: I tried my best answering the question. It'd be appreciated if you leave an upvote. Thanks in advance.