A global perspective on the marketing mix across time and space

Julian R.K. Wichmann, Abhinav Uppal, Amalesh Sharma and Marnik G. Dekimpe

International Journal of Research in Marketing, 2022, vol. 39, issue 2, 502-521

Abstract: The marketing mix (MM) is an integral part of a firm’s marketing strategy sitting at the nexus between a company and the marketplace. As such, it evolves together with the marketplace and its stakeholders. Over the past decade, three fundamental global drivers have emerged—advancements in technology, socioeconomic and geopolitical shifts, and environmental changes—that have caused major ongoing and intensifying evolutions in the marketplace, its stakeholders, and, in turn, the MM. We describe the resulting evolutions in the MM along four central questions: who is involved in the MM, what constitutes the MM, how is it implemented, and where is it deployed. We identify a blurring of roles and responsibilities relating to the MM (who), an extension and integration of the MM instruments (what), an increase in customization and fragmentation of its actions (how), and a growing recognition of emerging-market idiosyncrasies (where). Taking a look into the future, we observe that along each of the four dimensions, the MM has arrived at a crossroad, with opposing scenarios for its future: (i) more inter-firm collaboration versus marketing-mix protectionism, (ii) added complexity versus increased simplicity, (iii) further automation versus an increased recognition of the human touch, and (iv) local adaptation versus global uniformity in the marketing mix. Applying a contingency approach, we derive relevant moderators for these forthcoming evolutions and provide an extensive set of future research questions.

Keywords: Marketing-mix configuration; Global marketing; Inter-firm collaboration; Marketing-mix protectionism; Hyper-targeting; Local adaptation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167811621000665
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ijrema:v:39:y:2022:i:2:p:502-521

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2021.09.001

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Research in Marketing is currently edited by Roland Rust

More articles in International Journal of Research in Marketing from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().