By David Ronald
Many marketing organizations today are struggling for relevance.
Not because they’re ineffective or misaligned, but because they’ve lost ownership of the very foundation that once made marketing a strategic force in business:
Namely, the Four Ps.
In this blog post I explore this trend and propose a readjustment.
The Strategic Core of Marketing
Although the concept of the Four s has been around for a long time, some people reading this blog posts may be unfamiliar with it, as it’s fallen below the radar in recent years.
Professor E. Jerome McCarthy introduced the concept of the Four Ps in Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach, his seminal work, back in 1960. Philip Kotler, considered by many to be the "father of modern marketing", popularized the Four Ps in his book Marketing Management in 1967.
This framework quickly became the cornerstone of marketing education and practice:
- Product—what you’re selling, including features, design, quality, and customer value.
- Price—the pricing strategy, elasticity, perceived value, and competitive positioning.
- Place—how and where the product is distributed, sold, and delivered.
- Promotion—how the product is marketed and communicated to customers.
At its core, this model positions marketing not as a support function, but as the architect of value, responsible for shaping what the business sells, how it sells it, and how it communicates that value to the market.
But somewhere along the way, modern marketing teams stopped owning the whole equation.
How Marketing Lost the Four Ps
Let’s examine how ownership of each “P” has shifted – and what that means for marketing’s strategic seat at the table.
1. Product
Nowadays, the product itself, from feature prioritization to roadmap direction, is largely the domain of the product team. And rightfully so.
But too often, marketing is brought in only at the tail end of development, tasked with "launching" something they had little role in shaping.
What is the consequence?
Too often the result is misalignment between what’s being built and what the market actually needs.
A good marketer isn’t just a megaphone – they’re a translator between customer needs and product solutions.
Without a hand in shaping the product, marketing’s voice gets muted.
2. Price
Pricing strategy is increasingly determined by finance models or sales incentives.
Marketers may be looped in late, or not at all, missing the chance to influence how price communicates value.
Great pricing isn't just about margins – it’s a signal to the market. It's about perceived value, competitive differentiation, and psychological anchoring.
When marketers are left out of this conversation, pricing becomes mechanical instead of strategic.
3. Place
Although once a pillar of physical retail and distribution, “place” now includes complex digital ecosystems, partner strategies, and channel optimization.
This area has become fragmented across sales ops, revenue teams, or channel managers.
But marketing should still own a key piece – helping determine the right channels, not just all possible ones.
Without strategic marketing guidance, distribution becomes reactive, not intentional.
4. Promotion
Promotion is where most marketing teams still play.
But even here, it’s often divided - brand, demand gen, content, social, paid media, typically operate in silos, and frequently without tight integration to the other Ps.
So, what happens next?
You get beautifully branded campaigns that don’t match product-market fit, generate leads that don’t convert, or messaging that emphasizes features no one asked for.
Tactical Overload, Strategic Drift
When marketing no longer owns the Four Ps holistically, it risks becoming tactically busy but strategically irrelevant.
You might be delivering campaigns, managing tools, running webinars – but if you're not influencing product, price, and place, you're not shaping the business.
This is how marketing slowly gets reduced to the “make-it-pretty” department, expected to create content, polish decks, and execute campaigns, rather than contribute to the company's core value proposition.
It’s not that modern marketing is doing less. It’s that it’s doing more of the wrong things, while the strategic levers remain untouched.
Reclaiming the Four Ps: A Call to Action for Marketing Leaders
So how do we fix this?
How can marketing teams reclaim ownership, or at least shared stewardship, of the Four Ps?
1. Earn a Seat at the Product Table
Don’t wait for the product team to hand you a release – embed yourself earlier in the development cycle.
Use customer insights, competitive analysis, and market research to inform product direction, not just react to it.
Product marketing, in particular, can lead here, not just by translating features into benefits, but by shaping what features get built in the first place.
2. Lead with Value-Based Pricing Insights
Pricing shouldn’t be a spreadsheet exercise.
Marketing can bring voice-of-customer data, win/loss analysis, and competitive research to pricing conversations.
You understand how value is perceived – use that knowledge to advocate for a pricing model that supports both growth and differentiation.
3. Be a Strategic Voice in Distribution
Even if marketing doesn’t "own" the channel, you should have a voice in how and where your products are positioned.
Is your audience really on TikTok? Does your sales model support product-led growth? Are your partners aligned with your core message?
Marketing is the connective tissue between buyer expectations and business outcomes.
4. Integrate Promotion with the Full Funnel
Stop thinking of promotion as just a megaphone – it’s part of a system.
Every campaign should tie back to product value, pricing strategy, and go-to-market priorities.
Recenter messaging around the why, not just the what.
Build stories that reflect the full product and customer lifecycle, and not just the top of the funnel.
The Four Ps Remain Relevant
Some argue the Four Ps are outdated in today’s digital world, but that’s only true if we take them literally.
No, we don’t control retail shelves anymore – and, yes, we’re marketing in a world of data, intent signals, and AI-driven personalization.
But the core ideas – how we create value (Product), capture value (Price), deliver value (Place), and communicate value (Promotion) – are more important than ever.
The tools have changed and the channels have expanded.
But the fundamentals remain.
Conclusion
If marketing wants to lead, it must reclaim its foundation.
Not by fighting other teams for ownership, but by stepping back into strategic partnership across the business.
By bringing customer insight, market understanding, and a holistic view of value creation back into every corner of the go-to-market machine.
Marketing isn’t just about visibility. It’s about vision. And vision comes from owning, or at least influencing, the things that actually move the business.
Thanks for reading.
Would you like to discuss this blog post? If so, my email is david@alphabetworks.com – I look forward to hearing from you.
