Adapting Mccarthy’s Four P’s for the Twenty-First Century

The marketing mix of Product, Price, Promotion, and Place was introduced to marketing education by E. Jerome McCarthy in 1960. These mnemonically easy-to-remember labels rapidly became the organizing structure for virtually all introductory marketing textbooks. Since then, there have been many advances in marketing thought and conceptualization, including the broadening of the marketing concept (1970s), an emphasis on the exchange transaction (1980s), and, most recently (1990s), the development of Relationship Marketing and Total Quality Management. Each of these advances has posed challenges to McCarthy’s four P’s. However, McCarthy’s core concept is quite robust. Marketing educators need only expand the definitions of Product, Price, Promotion, and Place for them to continue to serve as the operative mnemonic organizing structure of marketing education and practice well into the foreseeable future.