ABSTRACT
Neil Borden and Jerome McCarthy’s creation of the marketing mix, especially the 4Ps, has been the mantra of marketing practitioners and scholars alike for decades. However, in recent years, numerous authors have proposed various changes and modifications to the 4Ps to account for multiple updates in the field of marketing since the idea of the 4Ps was first introduced. This paper briefly reviews Borden’s and McCarthy’s original ideas and then provides a comprehensive summary of the various alternatives proposed to improve the 4Ps. A new marketing mix model, CPR, is presented that not only includes all of the elements outlined by Borden and McCarthy and the vast majority of the most commonly recommended changes to the 4Ps, but it also retains the simplicity, mnemonic appeal, adaptability, and utility that made the 4Ps model so successful for so long.
Keywords
marketing mix, 4P’s, marketing strategy, internal forces, and external force