The 5 Ps - Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and Pffftt!

Ginger Conlon is the executive editor of 1to1 publications, the former editor in chief of CRM magazine and literally the best in the business when it comes to journalism and customer thinking. She is and has been a thought leader in her own right for a long time (though she's young....really). So I was pretty excited when I got an email from a friend of mine, Candice Chee, who told me that she had seen my blog entry on 1to1's blog - though I was a little perplexed - since I didn't remember doing a blog entry on 1to1. What I found out was that Ginger used my speech at Gartner or at least the part where I went after the 4Ps of marketing to highlight the transition that's going on in the minds of the customers and the lessons that are necessary for businesses.

I actually have been evolving - based on a concept that Springwise called Generation Value lies with the customerC - the 5Cs. That means a generation of customers regardless of age that's

1. Connected
2. Creative
3. Collaborative
4. Content-driven
5. Contextual

That also means that the 4Ps - as valuable as they may have been to a prior generation of marketing gurus - and as important as they were to the 60s through 90s so to speak, are no longer as valuable because they are built around the premise that products and services are where value rests and that we still live in a Yellow Submarine - oop, I mean corporate ecosystem.

Reality is that we live in a customer ecosystem where the customer rules and value rests in the value that the customer provides. How many times or ways can I say this? At the risk of repeating myself and because my creative juices are running low, let me put it this way:

1. Value resides with the customer
2. Value lies with the customer
3. Value sits with the customer
4. Value is provided by the customer
5. Value is the return on the customer
6. Ad nauseum
7. Ad infinitum

Okay, enough of that.

The 5Cs presume that the customer ecosystem is dominant and they tell you what kind of customer you are dealing with. Age is not the criterion upon which the demographic is based. I'm a 5C customer, so are friends of mine who are 22 or 44 or 66. But there are customers who are NOT 5C customers too. But again, the presumption is that the ecosystem is still customer-centered so the old business logic, the old marketing logic is no longer a preeminent one. Look at those who are implementing the cutting edge approaches like Proctor and Gamble - they are immensely success at it. Check out P&G's Sparkle Body Spray site for a terrific example of how the 5Cs work. This is a body spray in different scents aimed at teen girls. Each scent has a site that has a different personality it aims at. So for example, Apple, is a preppy site with a different blog, different downloads, customizations etc. for the personality that Apple represents. You can match each of the 5Cs to the site easily. I won't because I'm on a cruise at the moment, but, hey, you shouldn't be lazy. go match it up yourself and you'll see exactly what I mean. Its pretty blatant.

Success? Yeah, it sure is. The site was launched with the sprays in February 2005 and by July - five months later, P&G owned 0.8% of the anti-perspirant/deodorant market which translated to $83 million of the $10.4 billion out there. That's in FIVE MONTHS. A lot to do with how to appeal to the new breed customer.

5Cs from the high seas. See ya. More as this evolves.

Technorati : CRM, marketing

Comments

[PaulSweeney]

Still, the 5c's are good. I'm going to put that one up on our blogsite!