The Four PS: How The Firms Can Influence The Buyer’s Response

The Four Ps of the marketing mix has been referred to as “the holy quadruple ... of the marketing faith” (Kent, 1986) The Marketing Mix is the set of controllable variables that the firm can use to influence the buyer’s response, (Kotler, 2003) These variables are namely: product, place, price, and promotion. These four factors can be used to ‘summarise key decisions and responsibilities of marketing managers, (McDonald and Roberts, 1992) This useful mnemonic that was made popular by McCarthy in the 1960s, has been the basic model used by many companies in order to achieve high sales, growth, and profits. For example, the 4 Ps can be used to break down and explain Coca Cola’s marketing strategy. Product may be defined as, “A bundle of attributes (features, functions, benefits, and uses) capable of exchange or use; usually a mix of tangible and intangible forms” (American Marketing Association, 2016), or, “anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need” (Kotler and Keller, 2006, p. 372). Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink produced by the Coca-Cola company. It has a large and varied product portfolio in the beverage industry.

Coca Cola’s product strategy in its marketing mix can be portrayed by its wide product range. These include Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta, Diet Coke, Coca-Cola Zero, Coca-Cola Life, Dasani, Minute Maid and 13 other drinks in order to satisfy all tastes and preferences. This is also because they are trying to cater to all markets i.e mass marketing. The Coca-Cola logo is clearly made visible on each of these bottles and cans in order to ensure product differentiation and Coca-Cola bottles also have unique shapes pertaining to their brand, therefore building a strong and memorable brand that creates customer loyalty. Coca-Cola, Sprite, and Fanta have large market shares in their respective segments but their growth is almost stagnant, making them cash cows in the company’s product portfolio, Minute Maid, on the other hand, has a high market share and good growth rate, and this ensures the company is growing. Price, as are all the elements of the marketing mix, is a tool to influence demand and a key positioning driver, influencing how the product, or brand, is perceived by the consumer in relation to competitors (Kotler and Keller, 2006). There are many pricing strategies such as cost-plus, penetration, surge etc. Coca-Cola follows a 2nd-degree price discrimination strategy in its marketing mix. They charge different prices for products in different segments, for example in developing countries where they would consider their consumers to be more price sensitive, they charge lower prices.

The global beverage market is considered to be an oligopoly in which there are few large firms. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are the dominant players. Coke products are priced similar to that of Pepsi products in that particular segment. Coca-Cola also offers discounts on bulk purchases by sometimes even bundling the products, in order to maximize profitability.