Eureka Bar : The "0th P" in Marketing

Open any marketing book by any marketing guru, you will find one thing in common i.e. 4 P’s for products and to stretch it a bit, 7 P’s for services (someone of course thought of the intangible aspect of a service) and so on and so forth. Now this post obviously won’t talk about the credibility of this practice, because time and again, we have seen how these very principles guide the marketing managers to their well deserved zenith.

Now I somehow see one thread attached to all the P’s without which they would be void. I call the P as "PROMISE". Now looking back again at the conventional 4 P’s i.e. Product, Place, Price and promotion, the "Promise-P" is the only element which holds or binds all the other P’s. This "promise" element can be a token of assurance to its customers or in the form of a guarantee to its vendors or suppliers.

I will illustrate it with an example. Take the case of a mobile phone.

• First and foremost thing is the promise to its component suppliers that it will have a rewarding relationship.

• Secondly, a promise to its customer that the product is secure and they can endorse it (this is entangled with 1^st P-product). Now if a company fails to do it, then all other P’s will simply fade away.

• Then comes a promise to deliver it as conveniently as possible in a nearby location to reap maximum benefit, both for the company and the customer.

• Then the promise to give the product/service within stipulated MRP and this constitutes the Price-P.

• Last but not least the promise to its customers that the promotional message is accurate.

Taking cues from the above stated quotes, we can realize that promise acts as fundamental principle for the 4P’s.

Since Aryabhatta gave the world the number zero which revolutionized the number system, hence I have framed my hypothesis too in the same line and named it as the "0th P-Promise".

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