Grönroos, C. ( 2002 ). Quo Vadis, Marketing?

: Toward a relationship
marketing paradigm . The Marketing Review, 3 pp. 129-146. (AR87545)

The Marketing Review 2002, 3, 129-146 www.themarketingreview.com

MARKETING CLASSIC1

Christian Grönroos
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration

Quo Vadis, Marketing?

Toward a Relationship Marketing Paradigm
The marketing mix and its 4Ps have remained the marketing paradigm for
decades. In the article it is argued that the foundation for this paradigm is
weak and that it has had negative effects on marketing research and
practice. Contemporary research into services marketing and industrial
marketing demonstrates that a new approach to marketing is required. This
new approach is based on building and management of relationships. A
paradigm shift in marketing is under way. The thoughts and actions of
marketing academics and practitioners should not be constrained by a
paradigm from the 1950s and 1960s

Introduction

The first true analytical contribution to marketing was probably made by Joel
Dean (e.g. 1951), an economist. However, marketing the way most
textbooks treat it today was introduced around 1960. The concept of the
marketing mix and the four P’s of marketing – product, price, place and
promotion – entered the marketing textbooks at that time (McCarthy 1960).
Quickly they also became the unchallenged basic theory of marketing so
totally overpowering previous models and approaches, such as, for example,
the organic functionalist approach advocated by Wroe Alderson (1950 and
1957) as well as other systems-oriented approaches (e.g. Fisk 1967 and Fisk
and Dixon 1969) and the institutional approach (e.g. Duddy and Revzan
1947) that these are hardly remembered even with a footnote in most
textbooks of today. American Marketing Association, in its most recent
definition states that “marketing is the process of planning and executing the
conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services
to create exchange and satisfy individual and organizational objectives”
(emphasis added) AMA Board 1985).
For decades the four P’s of the marketing mix became an indisputable
paradigm in academic research, the validity of which was taken for granted
(Kent 1986; Grönroos 1989 and 1990a). For most marketing researchers in

1
This paper was first published in the Journal of Marketing Management (1994),
Volume 10, Issue 5, pp.347-360
ISSN 1472-1384/2002/2/00129 + 18 £4.00/0 ©Westburn Publishers Ltd.
130 Christian Grönroos

large parts of the academic world it seems to remain the marketing truth even
today. Kent (1986) refers to the four P’s of the marketing mix as “the holy
quadruple….of the marketing faith ….written in tablets of stone” (p.146). As
he argues, “the mnemonic of the four P’s, by offering a seductive sense of
simplicity to students, teachers and practitioners of marketing, has become
an article of faith” (p.145). For an academic researcher looking for tenure
and promotion, to question it has been to stick out his or her neck too far.
And prospective authors of textbooks, who suggest another organisation than
the four P solution for their books, are quickly corrected by most publishers.
As a result, empirical studies of what the key marketing variable are, and how
they are perceived and used by marketing managers have been neglected.
Moreover, structure has been vastly favoured over process considerations
(Kent 1986).
In marketing education, teaching students how to use a toolbox has
become the totally dominating task instead of discussing the meaning and
consequences of the marketing concept and the process nature of market
relationships. Marketing in practice has to a large extent been turned into
managing this toolbox instead of truly exploring the nature of the firm’s
market relationships and genuinely taking care of the real needs and desires
of customers.

What is the History of the Marketing Mix?

A paradigm like this has to be well founded by theoretical deduction and

empirical research; otherwise much of marketing research is based on a
loose foundation and the results of it questionable. Let us look at the history
of the marketing mix paradigm and the four P’s.
The marketing mix developed from a notion of the marketer as a “mixer of
ingredients”, which was an expression originally used by James Culliton
(1948) in a study of marketing costs in 1947 and 1948. The marketer plans
various means of competition and blends them into a “marketing mix” so that
a profit function is optimized, or rather satisfied. The “marketing mix” concept
was introduced by Neil Borden in the 1950s (Borden 1964), and the mix of
different means of competition was soon labelled the four P’s (McCarthy
1960).2
The marketing mix is actually a list of categories of marketing variables,
and to begin with this way of defining or describing a phenomenon can never
be considered a very valid one. A list never includes all relevant elements, it
does not fit every situation, and it becomes obsolete. And indeed, marketing
academics every now and then offer additional P’s to the list, once they have

2
McCarthy was not, however, the first person to organize marketing variables in a
four P-like structure. The first marketing textbook organised in this way was
published by Harry Hansen (1956), where he used the following six categories
product policy, distribution channel, advertising, personal selling, pricing and sales
programs.
 Quo Vadis, Marketing? 131

found the standard “tablet of faith” too limited. Kotler (1986) has in the
context of megamarking, added public relations and politics, thus expanding
the list to six P’s. In service marketing, Booms and Bitner (1982) have
suggested three additional P’s, people, physical evidence and process. Judd
(1987) among others, has argued for just one new P, people.3 Advocators of
the marketing mix paradigm sometimes have suggested that service should
be added to the list of P’s (e.g. Lambert and Harrington 1989 and Collier
1991).4 It is, by the way, interesting to notice that after the four P’s were
definitely canonized sometime in the early 1970s new items to the list are
almost exclusively put in the form of P’s.5
It is also noteworthy that Borden’s original marketing mix included 12
elements, and that this list was not intended to be a definition at all. Borden
considered it guidelines only which the marketer probably would have to
reconsider in any given situation. In line with the “mixer of ingredients”
metaphor he also implied that the marketer would blend the various
ingredients or variables of the mix into an integrated marketing program.
This is a fact that advocators of the four P’s (or five, six, seven or more P’s)
and of today’s marketing mix approach seem to have totally forgotten.
In fact, the four P’s represent a significant oversimplification of Borden’s
original concept. McCarthy either misunderstood the meaning of Borden’s
marketing mix when he reformulated the original list in the shape of the rigid
mnemonic of the four P’s where no blending of the P’s is explicitly included;
or his followers misinterpreted McCarthy’s intentions. In many marketing
textbooks organised around the marketing mix, such as Philip Kotler’s well-
known Marketing Management (e.g. 1991), the blending aspect and the need
for integration of the four P’s are discussed, even in depth, but such
discussions are always limited due to the fact that the model does not
explicitly include an integrative dimension.
3
As a matter of fact, even in the homeland of the marketing mix there has been at
least some debate about this paradigm. However, the basic way of handling the
problem has always been to use the same clinical approach, i.e. to simplify the
market relationship by developing a list of decision making variables. No real
innovativeness and challenge of the foundation of the paradigm have been
presented. In the 1960s and early 1970s, categories which did not begin with the
letter P were suggested, e.g. Staudt and Taylor 1965, Lipson and Darling 1971 and
Kelly and Lazer 1973 (three categories each), whereas the letter P almost always
has been present in lists of categories put forward in the 1980s and 1990s, e.g.
Traynor 1985 (five categories), Johnson 1986 (12), Keely 1987 (four C’s), Berry 1990
1990, Mason and Mayer 1990 (six), Collier 1991 (seven) and LeDodoux 1991 (five)
4
This would be disastrous, because it would isolate customer service as a marketing
variable from the rest of the organization, just as has happened with the four P
marketing mix variable. It would effectively counteract all attempts to make customer
service a responsibility of everyone and not of a separate department only
5
In spite of all the additional categories of marketing variables that have been
offered by various authors, there is only one textbook that is thoroughly based on
anything else than the four P’s. Donald Cowell’s (1984) book on the marketing of
services which is organized around the seven P framework.
132 Christian Grönroos

The original idea of a list of a large number of marketing mix ingredients

that have to be reconsidered in every given situation was probably shortened
for pedagogical reasons and because a more limited number of marketing
variables seemed to fit typical situations observed by the initiators of the
short list of four standardized P’s. These typical situations can be described
as involving consumer packaged goods in a North American environment
with huge mass media. However, in other markets the infrastructure is to
varying degrees different and the products are only partly consumer
packaged goods. Nevertheless the four P’s of the marketing mix have
become the universal marketing theory and an almost totally dominating
paradigm for most academics, and they have had a tremendous impact on
the practice of marketing as well. Is there any justification for this? Let us
first look at the paradigm itself.

The Nature of the Marketing Mix

As has previously been said, the marketing mix is a list of variables, and we
have already pointed out the shortcomings of such a way of defining a
phenomenon. Moreover, any marketing paradigm should be well set to fulfil
the marketing concept, i.e. the notion that the firm is best off by designing
and directing its activities according to the needs and desires of customers in
chosen target markets. How well is the marketing mix fit to do that?
One can easily argue that the four P’s of the marketing mix are badly fit to
fulfil the requirements of the marketing concept. As Dixon and Blois (1983)
put it, “…indeed it would not be unfair to suggest that far from being
concerned with a customer’s interests (i.e. somebody for whom something is
done) the views implicit in the four P approach is that the customer is
somebody to whom something is done!” (emphasis added) (p.4). To use a
marketing metaphor, the marketing mix and its 4 P’s constitute a production-
oriented definition of marketing, and not a market-oriented or customer-
oriented one (see Grönroos 1989 and 1990a). Moreover, although McCarthy
(1960) recognises the interactive nature of the P’s, the model itself does not
explicitly include any interactive elements. Furthermore, it does not indicate
the nature and scope of such interactions.
The marketing mix makes marketing seem so easy to handle and
organise. Marketing is separated from other activities of the firm and
delegated to specialists who take care of the analysis, planning and
implementation of various marketing tasks, such as market analysis,
marketing planning, advertising, sales promotion, sales, pricing, distribution
and product packaging. Marketing departments are created to take
responsibility for the marketing function of the firm, sometimes together with
outside specialists on, for example, market analysis and advertising. Both in
the marketing literature and in everyday marketing vocabulary the expression
marketing department, and organisational unit, is used as a synonym for
marketing function, which is the process of taking care of the fulfilment of
customer needs and desires. As a consequence, the rest of the organization
 Quo Vadis, Marketing? 133

is alienated from marketing, and the marketers are isolated from design,
production, deliveries, technical service, complaints handling, and other
activities of the firm.
In conclusion, the problems with the marketing mix paradigm are not the
number or conceptualization of the decision variables, the P’s, as the
American Marketing Association as well as the authors of most publications
criticising the marketing mix paradigm argue. Rather, the problem is of
theoretical nature. The four P’s and the whole marketing mix paradigm are,
theoretically, based on a loose foundation, which in a recent Journal of
Marketing article was demonstrated by van Watershoot and Van den Bulte
(1992; see also Van den Bulte 1991 and Kent 1986). Many marketing-
related phenomena are not included (Moller 1992), and as Johan Arndt (1980
and 1985) has concluded, marketing research remains narrow in scope and
even myopic, and methodological issues become more important than
substance matters. “Research in marketing gives the impression of being
based on a conceptually sterile and unimaginative positivism…..The
consequence..…is that most of the resources are directed toward less
significant issues, overexplaining what we already know, and toward
supporting and legitimizing the status quo.” (Arndt 1980, p.399).
Unfortunately, far too little has changed in mainstream marketing research
since this was written over a decade ago.
The usefulness of the four P’s as a general marketing theory for practical
purposes is, to say the least, highly questionable. Originally, although they
were largely based on empirical induction, they were probably developed
under the influence of microeconomic theory and especially the theory of
monopolistic competition of the 1930s (e.g. Chamberlin 1933), in order to add
more realism to that theory. However, very soon the connection to
microeconomic theory was cut off and subsequently totally forgotten.
Theoretically, the marketing mix became just a list of P’s without roots.

Marketing Variables in Economic Theory and in Parameter Theory

A closer analysis of the nature of the marketing mix shows that it is not a
remarkable leap forward from microeconomic theory as developed 60 years
ago. As Dixon and Blois (1983) observe, when discussing the work of
Chamberlin (1933) and Joan Robinson (1933), “…thus Joan Robinson’s
….writing discusses the subdivision of market and the firm’s response
through the use of the price elements of the four P’s. At the same time
Chamberlin…recognizes that all aspects of the product, location,
communication, as well as price may be altered with subsequent effects on
demand” (p.5). Chamberlin’s basic decision variables were price, product
and promotion, although in his theory of monopolistic competition, price was
treated as the main variable. In this same tradition, for example, researchers
such as Brems (1951) and Abbott (1955) added new decision variables to the
traditional price variables of economic price theory. However, as Mickwitz
(1959) observes, instead of price they “…have put quality in the centre of
134 Christian Grönroos

their systems” (p.9). This is an interesting fact to observe today when quality
again has become a key issue in business practice and research. For
example, Abbott, who uses the term “quality competition”, has an
astonishingly modern view of quality: “The term ‘quality’ will be used … in its
broadest sense, to include all the qualitative elements in the competitive
exchange process – materials, design, services provided, location and so
forth” (Abbott 1955, p.4) (emphasis added). The two other decision variables
in his system were price and advertising (including sales promotion).
Later, but well before the four P’s were formulated as the ultimate
marketing wisdom for decades, Gosta Mickwitz (1959) and others (e.g. Kjaer-
Hansen 1945 and Rasmussen 1955), representing a research approach for
which Mickwitz (1966) coined the label “Copenhagen School”, discussed an
expanded view along the same lines, which they labelled parameter theory.
This theoretical approach, especially as it is presented by Gosta Mickwitz
was, in fact, theoretically more developed and more realistic than the four P’s
of today’s mainstream marketing literature. As Mickwitz (1959) observes,
“when empirically based works on marketing mechanisms show that the
enterprise uses a number of different parameters markedly distinct from each
other, a theory of the behaviour of the enterprise in the market will be very
unrealistic if it is content to deal only with…(a few)…of them. We have
therefore tried throughout to pay attention to the presence of a number of
different methods which firms employ in order to increase their sales” (p.237).
The interactive nature of the marketing variables was explicitly recognised
and accounted for in parameter theory by means of varying markets
elasticities of the parameters over the product life cycle.
The concept “parameter theory” further developed by Mickwitz was
originally suggested by Arne Rasmussen (1955). However, the foundation
for it was laid much earlier by Frisch (1933), who in 1933 introduced the idea
of action parameters, although he did not in detail discuss more parameters
than price and quality. In 1939, von Stackelberg expanded the number of
parameters into a larger system (von Stackelberg 1939). He did not,
however, go into any details in his analysis. Although it had its shortcomings,
parameter theory was a step forward towards managerial realism, and it also
had a theoretical base due to its background in microeconomic theory.
In conclusion, when analysing the firm’s use of marketing variables, it is
not unfair to say that as the parameter theory of the 1950s was a definite
leap forward from the expanded price theory in the form of, for example,
Chamberlin’s theory of monopolistic competition of the 1930s, the
introduction of the for P’s of the marketing mix with their simplistic view of
reality can be characterized as a step back to the level of, in a sense equally
simplistic, microeconomic theory of the 1930s.

Contemporary Theories of Marketing

In most marketing textbooks the marketing mix paradigm and its four P’s are
still considered the theory of marketing. And indeed, this is the case in much
 Quo Vadis, Marketing? 135

of the academic research into marketing, especially in North America but also
to a considerable extent in other parts of the world as well. However, since
the 1960s, alternative theories of marketing have been developed. As Möller
(1992) observes in a recent overview of research traditions in marketing,
“from the functional view of marketing ‘mix’ management our focus has been
extended to the strategic role of marketing, aspects of service marketing,
political dimensions of channel management, interactions in industrial
networks; to mention just a few evolving trends” (p.197). Some of these
theories have been based on studies of the market relationships of firms in
specific types of industries. In this section the emerging theories and models
of the interaction/network approach to industrial marketing and the marketing
of services will be discussed. In the final section the relationship marketing
concept will be described.
The interaction/network approach to industrial marketing originated in
Sweden at Uppsala University during the 1960s (see, for example,
Blankenburg and Holm 1990) and has since spread to a large number of
European countries. Between the parties in a network various interactions
take place, where exchanges and adaptations to each other occur. A flow of
goods and information as well as financial and social exchanges takes place
in the network. (See, for example, Håkansson 1982, Johanson and Mattsson
1985 and Kock 1991) In such a network the role and forms of marketing are
not very clear. All exchanges, all sorts of interactions have an impact on the
position of the parties in the network. The interactions are not necessarily
initiated by the seller – the marketer according to the marketing mix paradigm
– and they may continue over a long period of time, for example, for several
years.
The seller, who at the same time may be the buyer in a reciprocal setting,
may of course employ marketing specialists, such as sales representatives,
market communication people and market analysts but in addition to them a
large number of persons in functions which according to the marketing mix
paradigm are non-marketing, such as research and development, design,
deliveries, customer training, invoicing and credit management, have a
decisive impact on the marketing success of the “seller” in the network.
Gummesson (1987) has coined the term part-time marketers for such
employees of a firm. He observes that in industrial markets and in service
businesses, the part-time marketers typically outnumber several time the
fulltime marketers, i.e. the marketing specialists of the marketing and sales
departments. Furthermore, he concludes that “marketing and sales
departments (the full-time marketers) are not able to handle more than a
limited portion of the marketing as it staff cannot be at the right place at the
right time with the right customer contacts” (Gummesson 1990, p.13).
Hence, the part-time marketers do not only outnumber the full-time
marketers, the specialists, often they are the only marketers around.
In the early 1970s the marketing of services started to emerge as a
separate area of marketing with concepts and models of its own geared to
typical characteristics of services. In Scandinavia and Finland the Nordic
136 Christian Grönroos

School of Services more than research into this field elsewhere looked at the
marketing of services as something that cannot be separated from overall
management (see Grönroos and Gummesson 1985). In North American
research into service marketing has to a much greater extent remained within
the boundaries of the marketing mix paradigm, although it had produced
some creative results (e.g. Berry 1983, Berry and Parasuraman 1991).
Grönroos brought quality back into a marketing context by introducing the
perceived service quality concept in 1982 (Grönroos 1982), and he
introduced the concept of the interactive marketing function (Grönroos 1979
and 1982) to cover the marketing impact on the customer during the
consumption process, where the consumer of a service typically interacts
with systems, physical resources and employees of the service provider. In
France, Langeard and Eiglier (e.g. 1987) developed the servuction concept
for this system of interactions. These interactions occur between the
customer and employees who normally are not considered marketing people,
neither by themselves nor by their managers, and who do not belong to a
marketing or sales department. Nevertheless, they are part-time marketers.
In many situations long-lasting relationships between service providers and
their customers may develop. Again, the marketing success of a firm is only
partly determined by the “full-time marketers”. In fact, the “part-time
marketers” of a service provider may often have a much more important
impact on the future purchasing decisions of a customer than for example,
professional sales people or advertising campaigns (e.g. Gummesson 1987
and Grönroos 1990a).

The New Approaches and the Marketing Mix

The interaction and network approach of industrial marketing and modern

service marketing approaches, especially the one by the Nordic School,
clearly views marketing as an interactive process in a social context where
relationship building and management is a vital cornerstone. They are in
some respects clearly related to the systems-based approaches to marketing
of the 1950s (compare, for example, Alderson 1957). The marketing mix
paradigm and its four P’s, on the other hand, is a much more clinical
approach, which makes the seller the active part and the buyer and
consumer passive. No personalized relationship with the producer and
marketer of a product is supposed to exist, other that with professional sales
representatives in some case.
Obviously, this later view of marketing does not fit the reality of industrial
marketing and the marketing of services very well. Moreover, the
organisational approach inherent in the marketing mix paradigm that puts
marketing in the hands of marketing specialists in a marketing department is
not very useful either (see , for example, Piercy 1985, and Grönroos 1982
and 1990a). The psychological effect on the rest of the organisation of a
separate marketing department is, in the long run, often devastating to the
development of a customer orientation or market orientation in a firm. A
 Quo Vadis, Marketing? 137

marketing orientation with, for example, high-budget advertising campaigns

may be developed, but this does not necessarily have much to do with true
market orientation and a real appreciation for the needs and desires of the
customers. The existence or introduction of such a department may be a
trigger that makes everybody else lose whatever little interest in the
customers they may have had (Grönroos 1982). The marketing department
approach to organising the marketing function has isolated marketing from
other business functions and vice versa. Therefore, it has made it difficult,
often even impossible, to turn marketing into the “integrative function” that
would provide other departments with the market-related input needed in
order to make the organization truly market-oriented and reach a stage of
“coordinated marketing” (compare Kotler 1991, pp.19-24).
The development of innovative theories, models and concepts of industrial
marketing (interaction/network approach) and service marketing has clearly
demonstrated that the marketing mix paradigm and its four P’s finally have
reached the end of the road as the universal marketing theory. Marketing
research can, again, make a similar leap forward as the development of
parameter theory out of the price-dominated microeconomic theory was in
the 1950s. Parameter theory with its theoretical analysis of market
elasticities was at least to a considerable degree market oriented, whereas
from a theoretical point of view the marketing mix paradigm and the four P’s
turned the clock back.
From a management point of view the four P’s, undoubtedly, may have
been helpful. The use of various means of competition became more
organised. However, the four P’s were never applicable to all markets and to
all types of marketing situations. The development of alternative marketing
theories discussed above demonstrate that even from a management
perspective, the marketing mix and its four P’s became a problem. The
pedagogic elegance and deceiving sense of simplicity made practical
marketing management look all too clinical and straightforward even for
actors in the consumer packaged goods field where they were originally
intended to be used.
Consumer goods amounts to a considerable business, and there the four
P’s could still fulfil a function. However, many of the customer relationships
of manufacturers of consumer goods are industrial-type relationships with
wholesalers and retailers, and the retailers of consumer goods more and
more consider themselves service providers. In such situations the four P’s
have less to offer even in the consumer goods field. Moreover, as far as the
marketing of consumer goods from the manufacturer to the ultimate
consumers is concerned, there is a growing debate whether one can
continue to apply marketing in the traditional mass marketing way. Regis
McKenna (1991), a respected marketing consultant and writer, concludes in
a discussion about the decline in North America of advertising, the flagship of
traditional marketing, that “the underlying reasons behind….(this decline)…is
advertising’s dirty little secret: it serves no useful purpose. In today’s market,
advertising simply misses the fundamental point of marketing - adaptability,
138 Christian Grönroos

flexibility, and responsiveness” (p.13). Undoubtedly, this is to take it a little

bit to the extreme, but the point is well taken. An interest in turning
anonymous masses of potential and existing customers into interactive
relationships with well-defined customers is becoming increasingly important.
However, the grip of the marketing mix paradigm as the “marketing faith” is in
many parts of the world so strong among academics working in the field of
consumer goods marketing that this discussion seems to go on mostly
between marketing practitioners (see, for example, Rapp and Collins 1990,
McKenna 1991 and Clancy and Shulman 1991). In some standard marketing
textbooks, though, one can already see some signs of these new concepts
and approaches (e.g. Kotler 1991).

The Future: The Relationship Marketing Concept

The concept relationship marketing has emerged within the fields of service
marketing and industrial marketing (e.g. Berry 1982, Jackson 1985a,
Grönroos 1989 and 1990b, Grönroos 1991, and Gummesson 1987 and
1990). To a considerable extent both these approaches to marketing are
based on establishing and maintaining relationships between sellers and
buyers and other parties in the marketplace. Grönroos (1990a) defines
relationship marketing in the following way: “Marketing is to establish,
maintain and enhance….relationships with customers and other partners, at
a profit, so that the objectives of the parties involved are met. This is
achieved by a mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises” (p.138). Such
relationships are usually but not necessarily always long term.
An integral element of the relationship marketing approach is the promise
concept, which had been strongly emphasized by Henrik Calonius (e.g.
1988). According to him the responsibilities of marketing do not only, or
predominantly, including giving promises and thus persuading customers as
passive counterparts on the marketplace to act in a given way. Fulfilling
promises that have been given is equally important as means of achieving
customer satisfaction, retention of the customer base, and long-term
profitability (compare also Reichheld and Sasser 1990). He also stresses the
fact that promises are mutually given and fulfilled.
Relationship marketing is still in its infancy as a marketing concept. Its
importance is recognized to a growing extent, however. Philip Kotler (1992)
concludes in a recent article that “companies must move from a short-term
transaction-oriented goal to a long term relationship-building goal” (p.1). So
far, there seems to be only two books for textbook purpose that are based on
this emerging paradigm (Christopher et al., 1992 in English and Blomqvist et
al., 1993 in Swedish). However, relationship marketing is clearly the
underlying approach in several books on service marketing (e.g. Grönroos
1990a and Berry and Parasuraman 1991) and industrial marketing (e.g.
Håkansson 1982, Jackson 1985b and Vavara 1992). In a growing number
of articles relationship issues are addressed (e.g. Jackson 1985a,
Gummesson 1987, Sonnenberg 1988, Grönroos 1987 and 1990b,
 Quo Vadis, Marketing? 139

Copulinsky and Wolf 1990 and Czepiel 1990) and conferences on

relationship marketing are being arranged. The importance of relationship
building is advancing even into books from the world of consumer goods
marketing (see, for example, Rapp and Collins 1990). In the future, this
marketing approach most certainly will be the focal point of marketing
research, thus positioning itself as a leading marketing paradigm. However,
remembering the damaging long-term effects of the marketing mix, hopefully
it will not establish itself as the only one.

Some Final Observations

Why has the marketing mix paradigm and the four P model become such a
straightjacket for markets? The main reason for this is probably the
pedagogical virtues of the four P’s that makes teaching marketing so easy
and straightforward. The simplicity of the model seduces teachers to toolbox
thinking instead of constantly reminding them of the fact that marketing is a
social process with far more facets than that. As a consequence of this
researchers and marketing managers are also constrained by the simplistic
nature of the four P’s. The victims are marketing theory and customers.
The marketing mix paradigm served a function at one time in the
development of marketing theory. However, when it established itself as the
universal truth in marketing, it started to cause more harm than good. Most
damaging is the fact that marketing and the marketers have become so
isolated in the organization. Both from an organizational point of view and
from a psychological standpoint the marketing department is off side.
Relationship marketing requires the support of people in other departments
and business functions to be effective and successful. Today, this is very
difficult to achieve.
Furthermore, the marketing specialists organized in a marketing
department may get alienated from the customers. Managing the marketing
mix means relying on mass marketing. Customers become numbers for the
marketing specialists, whose actions, therefore, are typically based on
surface information obtained from market research reports and market share
statistics. Frequently such “full-time marketers” act without ever really having
encountered a real customer.
The marketing department concept is obsolete and has to be replaced by
some other way of organizing the marketing function, so that the organization
shall have a chance to become market oriented. A traditional marketing
department will always, in the final analysis, stay in the way of spreading
market orientation and an interest in the customer throughout the
organization (compare Piercy 1985, and Grönroos 1982 and 1990a).
Finally, the marketing mix paradigm and the four P’s have alienated
people in the rest of an organization from marketing and from the “full-time
markets”, and vice versa. The term marketing has become a burden for the
marketing function. Managers as well as their subordinates in other
departments and functions do not want to take part in the marketing function.
140 Christian Grönroos

But according to the relationship marketing approach and contemporary

models of industrial marketing and service marketing they do undoubtedly
belong to this function. The use of the marketing mix paradigm and the four
P’s has made it very difficult for the marketing function to earn credibility.
Some firms have solved this problem not only by downscaling or altogether
terminating their marketing departments but also by banning the use of the
term marketing for the marketing function (compare Grönroos 1982).
Perhaps we even need this kind of semantics.
In the final analysis, what we are experiencing today with the growing
awareness of the relationship marketing approach is a return to the “natural”
systems-oriented way of managing customer relationships that existed before
marketing became a far too clinical decision making discipline, and an
overorganized and isolated function. But even if the marketing mix is dying
as a dominating marketing paradigm and the four P model needs to be
replaced, this does not mean that the P’s themselves would be less valuable
than before as marketing variables. For example, advertising, pricing and
product branding will still be needed, but along with a host of other activities
and resources. However, what marketing deserves is new approaches, new
paradigms, which are more market oriented and where the customer indeed
is the focal point as suggested by the marketing concept. After all, we
experience the enormous change and complexity of the 1990s. Our thoughts
and actions should not be constrained by a paradigm from the 1950s and
1960s.

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 Quo Vadis? Retrospective Comment 145

Michael J. Baker
University of Strathclyde

Quo Vadis? Retrospective Comment

To be invited by the author to write a retrospective comment on a piece of

work that has been chosen for republication as a ‘Marketing Classic’ is very
flattering. So much so that one tends not to consider the implications. First, if
this paper is considered a ‘classic’ then it has already found favour with one’s
peers so you need to be doubly careful about any criticism you make of it.
Second, this is not a blind review and your identity will be known to all. Third,
do you really have the expertise to comment in the first place? On the
assumption that you have read the original, you will have to decide this for
yourself.
As Grönroos acknowledges he was not the first to criticise the dominance
of the marketing mix as the theoretical foundation of modern marketing
practice. For example, in 1986 the Journal of Marketing Management had
carried an article by R. A. Kent in which he deprecated the ‘seductive
simplicity’ of the 4Ps and the way in which they had come to monopolise
textbook writing and teaching – a point of view that was widely supported by
a number of other European scholars at the time.
Nor was Grönroos the first to propose Relationship Marketing as an
alternative paradigm that better reflected the marketing concept, the nature of
the marketing process and the real needs of customers. As he points out,
alternative theories concerned with the interaction/network approach to
industrial marketing had begun to emerge in the 1960s. Similarly, the Nordic
School evolved an original approach to the marketing of services in the
1970s while the Americans were seeing this as an application of mix
principles to a distinctive sub-field of marketing. He observes “The Nordic
School clearly views marketing as an interactive process in a social context
where relationship building and management is a vital cornerstone.”
Surprisingly, though, Grönroos makes no mention of a seminal paper that
appeared in the Journal of Marketing in 1992 that had a radical effect on
both research and practice in the USA - Fred Webster’s ‘The Changing Role
of Marketing in the Corporation’ – in which he advocated what many would
regard as the blueprint for relationship marketing. This despite the fact that
Webster was blissfully unaware of earlier and parallel developments in
Europe.
So why should this paper be considered a classic? Well, it was timely, it is
well written, it summarises the main arguments against the production-
oriented, oversimplified framework and toolbox methodology predicated by
the 4Ps, and it points to alternative models that capture better the interactive
and processual nature of marketing. Further, despite overlooking Webster,
146 Michael J. Baker

he identified Relationship Marketing as an important development when it

was still in its infancy. In sum, he provided a powerful critique of a
mechanistic and increasingly inappropriate way to practice marketing while
offering credible alternative procedures.
And in retrospect? Perhaps Grönroos’ main contribution is that he
cautioned against the wholesale adoption of relationship marketing as a
complete substitute for the old mix paradigm. Rather, he advocates a variety
of theoretical explanations each suited to a given context but all representing
the application of the marketing concept.
In making this recommendation Grönroos anticipated many of the
criticisms that have emerged of relationship marketing as a universal solution
to all marketing issues. Clearly, most consumers of mass produced, mass
distributed convenience goods are not looking for a relationship with the
seller and a mix management approach may well satisfy them better.
Similarly, many regard the very idea of ‘Customer Relationship Management’
as oxymoronic and antithetical to the true nature of a relationship. If we are
not careful the rhetoric of relationship marketing is liable to displace the
reality.
One should also consider the fact that the last issue of The Marketing
Review contained a ‘classic’ and a retrospective comment by its authors,
namely “Vanishing Point: The Mix Management Paradigm Re-Viewed”. This
paper first appeared in 1998 four years after “Quo Vadis” and the
retrospective written in 2002 makes it clear that the marketing mix model is
still with us.
Our own view is summarised in Chapter 1 of The Marketing Book (2003).
The true marketing concept is concerned with mutually satisfying exchange
relationship in which both parties get what they want – a win-win outcome
that reflects the Golden Rule –‘Do unto others as you would be done by’.
Implementation of this concept/orientation demands the existence of a
marketing function and the management of the extended marketing mix. But,
given the variety and complexity of possible exchange relationships, no
single solution exists and multiple explanations are to be encouraged.

References

Baker, Michael J. (2003), ‘One more time – what is marketing?’, Chapter 1

The Marketing Book, 5th Edition, edited by Michael J Baker, Oxford:
Butterworth-Heinemann
Kent, R. A. (1986) ‘Faith in the 4Ps: An Alternative’, Journal of Marketing
Management, 2(2), pp.145-154
Webster, F.E. (1992) ‘The Changing Role of Marketing in the Corporation’,
Journal of Marketing, 56 (October), pp.1-17