The Four Ps of the Marketing Concept: Prescriptive,Polemical, Permanent and Problematical

Abstract

A day rarely passes without there being discussion of the major changes which organizations in both the public and private sectors, are undergoing to become more effective. The case for change is often said to be driven by the imperatives of an increasingly demanding marketplace; and this case is often expressed in a seductive rhetoric which utilizes maxims and metaphors drawn from the ideological resource of the marketing concept. The authors believe that the current penchant for couching change initiatives in the language of marketing exposes some of the limitations of the marketing concept. Discusses these limitations and addresses the problems which constrain the use of the marketing concept as an ideological resource.