Few psychological ideas have entered marketing culture as completely as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It appears in brand workshops, consumer-behaviour textbooks, advertising presentations and segmentation exercises across the world. Its familiar pyramid seems to offer an elegant explanation of human motivation: people first seek food and physical survival, then safety, belonging, esteem and, finally, self-actualisation.

For marketers, the appeal is obvious. Insurance can be positioned around safety, social platforms around belonging, luxury goods around esteem and education or travel around self-actualisation. The model translates abstract human motivation into a simple set of communication territories.

Yet the famous pyramid is not an accurate reproduction of Abraham Maslow’s original theory. Maslow never drew a pyramid. His 1943 article “A Theory of Human Motivation” described five broad sets of goals, but treated their order as relative rather than mechanically fixed. Needs could be partially satisfied, several could operate simultaneously, and individual priorities could differ (Maslow, 1943).

The triangular image emerged later, when management writers and consultants converted Maslow’s theory into a compact tool for organisational motivation. Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard traced the now-familiar pyramid to Charles McDermid’s 1960 management article, rather than to Maslow himself (Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard, 2019).

This difference matters. Maslow developed a humanistic account of motivation and growth. The pyramid turned that account into a visual technology of management.

Marketing inherited both versions. From Maslow it gained the idea that consumers pursue psychological, social and developmental goals beyond simple survival. From the pyramid it gained an apparently universal ordering system through which products and messages could be classified.

The first contribution remains valuable. The second requires caution.

The history of Maslow’s hierarchy therefore reveals a broader pattern in marketing thought. Complex theories are often simplified when they enter business education. The simplified version may become more influential than the original, even when empirical research offers limited support.

A historically informed approach does not require marketers to abandon Maslow. It requires them to use his theory as a flexible heuristic rather than as a scientifically proven map of every consumer.

Abraham Maslow and Humanistic Psychology

Abraham Harold Maslow was born in 1908 and became a central figure in the development of humanistic psychology. He taught at Brooklyn College and later at Brandeis University, where he worked from 1951 to 1969 and helped establish its psychology department.

Maslow’s work developed partly in response to two dominant psychological traditions. Psychoanalysis concentrated heavily on unconscious drives, conflict and pathology. Behaviourism explained behaviour through observable learning, reinforcement and environmental conditioning.

Maslow believed that these approaches illuminated important aspects of human life but neglected creativity, purpose, personal growth and psychological health.

Humanistic psychology therefore shifted attention from dysfunction alone towards human possibility. Rather than asking only what causes neurosis or maladaptive behaviour, Maslow asked what enables people to flourish.

This perspective later appealed strongly to marketers. A theory centred on aspiration and personal development could explain why consumers seek experiences, identities and meanings rather than only material utility.

Maslow’s influence extended well beyond psychology into management, education, healthcare, design and consumer research. Ironically, the simplified pyramid often travelled further than his original writings.

The Original 1943 Theory

Maslow introduced his theory in the Psychological Review in 1943. He proposed at least five sets of basic goals: physiological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualisation (Maslow, 1943).

Physiological needs include food, water, sleep and other bodily requirements. Maslow argued that severe deprivation can dominate consciousness. A starving person may organise thought and behaviour around the acquisition of food.

When physiological needs are sufficiently satisfied, safety can become more prominent. Safety concerns protection, stability, order and freedom from threat.

Love and belonging involve affectionate relationships, friendship, family and participation in groups.

Esteem includes both internal and external dimensions. People seek competence, mastery, independence and self-respect, but also recognition, reputation and status.

Self-actualisation refers to the desire to realise one’s potential. Maslow argued that a person must become what he or she is capable of becoming. The specific form differs: one person may realise potential through art, another through science, parenting, public service or business.

Later textbook accounts transformed these categories into five separate floors of a pyramid. Maslow’s original article did not.

Relative Priority Rather than Absolute Sequence

The popular rule that one level must be completed before the next begins is a distortion.

Maslow described an average pattern of relative prepotency. A stronger unmet need tends to organise behaviour, but needs do not switch on and off like lights.

He explicitly suggested that an individual might be satisfied to different degrees across all levels simultaneously. He offered an illustrative example in which physiological needs might be 85 per cent satisfied, safety 70 per cent, love 50 per cent, esteem 40 per cent and self-actualisation 10 per cent satisfied (Maslow, 1943).

He also acknowledged reversals and exceptions. Some individuals may value esteem above love. Creativity may remain compelling despite poverty. Ideals, faith or political commitments may lead people to sacrifice safety.

Behaviour is also multiply motivated. A meal may satisfy hunger, reinforce family bonds, express religious identity and communicate social status.

This insight is essential for marketing. Products cannot be placed objectively on a single level. Their meaning changes across consumers and occasions.

A smartphone can provide emergency security, social belonging, prestige and creative expression. A university degree can promise employment security, group membership, status and intellectual growth.

The hierarchy is therefore better understood as a set of interacting motivational domains than as a rigid staircase.

Maslow Did Not Create the Pyramid

The absence of a pyramid in Maslow’s work is more than a historical curiosity. Visual form changes interpretation.

Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard investigated the evolution of the image and concluded that Maslow never used it. Management educators began presenting the hierarchy through simplified stages during the 1950s. Keith Davis used a stepped triangular illustration, and Charles McDermid published a recognisable pyramid in 1960 (Bridgman, Cummings and Ballard, 2019).

McDermid connected the hierarchy to managerial efficiency and employee motivation. The model helped managers imagine that workers could be moved from wages and security towards recognition and achievement.

The pyramid’s broad base and narrow peak also implied that lower needs were common while self-actualisation was rare and elite.

This visual simplification fitted post-war management education. It was memorable, easy to reproduce and compatible with a managerial desire to organise complex human behaviour.

Once included in textbooks, the image became self-reinforcing. Students encountered the pyramid, later used it as managers and consultants, and taught it to others.

Marketing adopted the same diagram because it offered a convenient way to organise consumer motives.

Why Marketing Adopted Maslow

Marketing seeks to understand why people value one offering over another. Functional product attributes are only part of the answer.

Consumers purchase food, but also comfort and ritual. They purchase clothing, but also identity and social acceptance. They purchase transport, but also control, freedom and status.

Maslow gave marketers an accessible vocabulary for such differences.

Kotler and Keller distinguish needs, wants and demands. Needs are fundamental human requirements. Wants are culturally and personally shaped forms through which needs are expressed. Demands are wants supported by purchasing power (Kotler and Keller, 2016).

Maslow’s categories appeared to organise the first part of this process. Marketers could ask which need an offering serves and then investigate how culture turns that need into specific wants.

The framework was particularly suited to positioning. A brand could move beyond product features and articulate an emotional or social benefit.

A home-security service is technically a network of sensors, but its value proposition is protection and peace of mind. A premium watch measures time, yet may communicate achievement, craftsmanship and continuity.

Maslow’s influence therefore supported the broader historical movement from product-centred selling towards benefit-, identity- and value-based marketing.

Physiological Needs and Consumer Markets

Physiological needs are associated with food, drink, shelter, sleep and bodily comfort.

Many large consumer markets originate in these requirements. Food manufacturers, restaurants, beverage brands, housing providers, clothing companies and hospitality businesses all address basic bodily conditions.

However, modern competition rarely remains at the level of need satisfaction alone. Numerous products can relieve hunger or thirst. Differentiation occurs through taste, convenience, health, ethics, identity and experience.

Coffee may provide stimulation, but it can also signify routine, sophistication or social connection. A hotel room provides shelter and sleep, while a premium hotel sells personal attention, status and escape.

Even a basic need is culturally mediated. People do not consume nutrients in the abstract. They consume cuisines, brands, rituals and socially meaningful occasions.

For marketers, the physiological category should therefore be a starting point, not a complete explanation.

Safety as a Marketing Proposition

Safety marketing is widespread because threat and uncertainty are powerful motivators.

Insurance, financial services, medicine, cybersecurity, automobiles and home technology frequently emphasise protection and predictability.

Trust signals are part of the same domain. Warranties, independent testing, certifications, secure payment systems and transparent returns reduce perceived risk.

Automobile campaigns may show crash performance and driver-assistance systems. Banks communicate stability and fraud protection. Medical companies stress clinical evidence and quality controls.

The ethical risk is fear amplification. A campaign can inform consumers about genuine risk, but it can also exaggerate danger to create anxiety.

Fear appeals are especially sensitive in healthcare, finance and family protection. Responsible marketing should provide evidence, proportionality and meaningful choices rather than implying that refusal to buy is reckless.

Belonging and Brand Communities

The desire for belonging is central to advertising and branding.

Family meals, friendship groups, sports teams and shared celebrations appear repeatedly in commercial communication. They connect products with relationships rather than isolated consumption.

Brands can also become social markers. Fans of a sports club, motorcycle brand, music genre or game may experience real community through shared symbols and rituals.

Social media made belonging measurable and continuously accessible. Following an account, joining a group or using a hashtag can signal affiliation.

This creates value for brands, but also responsibility. Community marketing can foster genuine participation. It can equally exploit fear of exclusion.

Scarcity, invitation-only access and “everyone is joining” messages can make consumers feel socially inadequate.

The useful question is not merely whether belonging drives engagement, but whether a brand contributes to meaningful connection or manufactures insecurity.

Esteem, Recognition and Status Consumption

Esteem covers competence, achievement, reputation and recognition.

Luxury branding frequently addresses visible status. Watches, cars, fashion and travel may serve as social signals.

Yet esteem is broader than prestige. It also includes mastery, autonomy and self-respect.

Bourdieu demonstrated that consumption and taste help reproduce social distinction (Bourdieu, 1984). Levy argued that goods function as symbols through which people communicate identities and relationships (Levy, 1959).

Marketing can therefore appeal to external recognition or internal competence.

A professional qualification may promise promotion and status, but also genuine knowledge. A sports product may suggest social prestige, but also progress and personal mastery.

The distinction matters strategically. Messages built around superiority differ from those built around capability.

It also matters ethically. Marketing that repeatedly tells people they are inadequate without a particular product may intensify status anxiety.

Self-Actualisation and Aspirational Marketing

Self-actualisation has become the most attractive category for aspirational brands.

Educational institutions, travel companies, creative software providers, wellness services and coaching businesses often promise personal development.

The consumer is shown a possible future self: more capable, creative, independent or fulfilled.

This form of marketing can help people imagine meaningful change. It can also commercialise dissatisfaction.

When every hobby becomes self-optimisation and every experience becomes an investment in personal branding, consumers may feel permanently incomplete.

Self-actualisation should therefore not be reduced to continuous achievement. Maslow associated it with authenticity and the realisation of individual potential, not with endless consumption.

A product can support development, but cannot guarantee a meaningful life. Marketing claims should respect this limit.

Multi-Level Positioning

The strongest practical use of Maslow lies in recognising that one offering can address several needs.

A fitness platform can support physical health, reduce health risk, create community, provide achievement and enable personal growth.

A university can promise employment security, friendship networks, status and intellectual development.

A family car can provide transport, physical safety, social belonging and recognition.

This multi-level analysis is more realistic than assigning each category to one box.

It also reveals why different segments respond to different messages. One consumer may choose a vehicle primarily for reliability; another for family protection; another for design and prestige.

Marketing research must identify which motives are active rather than assuming them from the product category.

Social Media through a Maslovian Lens

Social platforms combine belonging, esteem and self-expression in unusually visible ways.

Users maintain relationships, join communities and share interests. At the same time, likes, follower counts and views quantify recognition.

Creators can use platforms for artistic expression and entrepreneurship, suggesting self-actualisation. Yet their visibility depends partly on algorithmic systems and public approval.

Influencer marketing operates across several layers. Followers may feel social closeness to a creator, admire the creator’s status and purchase products associated with that lifestyle.

Brands can participate in these relationships through sponsorships and community content.

The model also exposes platform risks. If recognition is quantified, users may become dependent on feedback. Idealised images can intensify comparison. Fear of missing out can turn belonging into pressure.

For marketers, Maslow should function here as an ethical audit. Which need is being addressed? Does the campaign support it or deliberately destabilise it?

The Evidence Problem

Maslow’s hierarchy became enormously popular without receiving equally strong empirical support.

Wahba and Bridwell reviewed research on the theory in 1976. They found little consistent evidence for a strict five-level ordering and limited support for the proposition that satisfaction of one need automatically activates the next (Wahba and Bridwell, 1976).

The categories themselves remain intuitively meaningful. The difficulty lies in their fixed order.

People maintain love, creativity and meaning under conditions of poverty and insecurity. Others with substantial material security may continue to focus primarily on safety.

Motivation changes with personality, age, life events and social context.

Tay and Diener studied need fulfilment and well-being across 123 countries. Basic, social and respect-related needs were all associated with well-being, but higher needs remained relevant when lower needs were not fully satisfied (Tay and Diener, 2011).

The evidence supports the importance of multiple human needs more clearly than it supports the pyramid’s sequencing.

Cultural Bias

Maslow’s model has often been criticised as culturally individualistic.

Hofstede argued that placing personal self-actualisation at the summit reflects mid-twentieth-century American values rather than a neutral universal ordering (Hofstede, 1984).

In collectivist contexts, family duty, communal harmony and social belonging may not be lower stages on the way to individual fulfilment. They may constitute fulfilment itself.

International marketers must therefore avoid mapping national cultures onto a universal pyramid.

A campaign celebrating independence and personal choice may work in one context and appear selfish in another. Status may be expressed through individual luxury, family success, educational achievement or community contribution.

The underlying needs may recur, but their meanings and priorities are culturally produced.

The Blackfoot and Siksika Debate

Maslow spent time with the Siksika community in Alberta in 1938. This encounter is sometimes presented online as the hidden source of his hierarchy.

Some accounts claim that Maslow borrowed an Indigenous model that placed community and cultural continuity above individual self-actualisation.

The historical evidence does not support a simple claim that he copied a pre-existing Blackfoot pyramid. No documented Indigenous pyramid identical to the later management diagram has been established.

However, First Nations scholars have argued that Maslow’s exposure to Siksika social life may have influenced his thinking about security, cooperation and human potential. They also stress that Indigenous understandings of well-being are relational and intergenerational and should not be reduced to the Western pyramid (Blackstock et al., 2022).

A careful history should acknowledge the visit and its possible influence without replacing one simplified origin myth with another.

Methodological Criticism

Maslow’s account of self-actualising individuals was not based on a representative population sample.

He selected people he considered psychologically healthy and admirable, including historical figures and individuals known to him. The criteria reflected his own judgement.

This creates a methodological problem. If self-actualisation is defined through selected characteristics and people are then chosen because they display those characteristics, the argument risks circularity.

The examples also overrepresented educated, Western and socially successful individuals.

A wider understanding of human fulfilment must recognise care work, communal responsibility, craft, spirituality and other forms of achievement that may not resemble elite intellectual or creative careers.

Marketing should similarly avoid assuming that every consumer’s highest aspiration is entrepreneurial, individualistic or publicly visible.

Deficiency and Growth Motivation

Maslow later distinguished deficiency needs from growth motivation.

Deficiency needs arise through lack. Hunger, danger, loneliness or humiliation create pressure to restore an acceptable condition.

Growth motivation operates differently. Learning and creativity may generate further interest rather than eliminate it.

This distinction remains useful for positioning.

Some products solve an acute problem. Others enable continuing development. A security service reduces threat; an educational service may expand curiosity.

Marketers should identify whether a proposition offers relief, maintenance or growth.

They should also avoid presenting every purchase as transformational. Not every ordinary product needs a self-actualisation narrative.

Later Extensions and Transcendence

Maslow’s later work included cognitive, aesthetic and transcendence-related motivations.

Cognitive needs concern knowledge and understanding. Aesthetic needs concern order, beauty and form. Transcendence involves commitment to values or purposes beyond the individual self.

These additions are relevant to cultural institutions, education and purpose-led organisations.

They also demonstrate that the famous five-level pyramid freezes one stage in Maslow’s evolving thought.

Purpose marketing can appeal to transcendence, but only when organisational behaviour supports the claimed values. A brand cannot credibly promise environmental or social contribution while its operations contradict the message.

Evolutionary Revisions

Kenrick and colleagues proposed a renovated hierarchy based on evolutionary psychology. Their model retained immediate physiological and safety concerns but added motives such as mate acquisition, mate retention and parenting (Kenrick et al., 2010).

They treated motivational systems as overlapping rather than permanently replaced.

The revised model stimulated debate because it removed self-actualisation from the summit and emphasised reproductive motives.

Its significance lies less in providing a final replacement than in demonstrating that Maslow’s pyramid is not the only possible hierarchy.

Motivational models depend on theoretical assumptions about what human beings are and what goals count as fundamental.

Alternatives for Marketing Research

Maslow should be combined with more specific theories.

Self-determination theory identifies autonomy, competence and relatedness as important psychological needs (Deci and Ryan, 2000). It offers a strong basis for analysing engagement, loyalty and intrinsic motivation.

Means–end chain theory connects product attributes with consequences and personal values. Identity theories explain symbolic consumption. Behavioural economics examines biases and decision contexts. Jobs-to-be-Done focuses on the progress consumers seek in particular situations.

These approaches often generate more testable marketing hypotheses.

Maslow remains valuable because it stimulates broad questions, not because it supplies precise predictions.

Ethical Use in Marketing

Needs-based marketing can become manipulative when it intentionally creates or deepens vulnerability.

A beauty brand may imply that social acceptance depends on appearance. A financial provider may exaggerate insecurity. A platform may design recognition metrics that encourage compulsive engagement.

Children, patients and financially vulnerable consumers require particular care.

The ethical standard should move beyond legal disclosure. Marketers should consider whether a campaign respects autonomy and provides truthful information.

Berghoff’s concept of marketing as a modern social technology is relevant here. Marketing does not merely discover natural demand. It helps organise markets, meanings and consumer expectations (Berghoff, 2007).

Using psychological insight therefore carries social responsibility.

A Better Way to Use Maslow

The model works best as a flexible set of questions.

What physical or functional problem does the offering address? What uncertainty does it reduce? Which relationships does it enable? What forms of competence or recognition does it support? How might it contribute to development, meaning or creativity?

These questions should be answered through consumer research rather than assumption.

Marketers should expect several needs to interact. They should investigate cultural variation and distinguish genuine product value from promotional fantasy.

Maslow can begin analysis. It should not end it.

Conclusion

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs occupies an unusual position in marketing history. It is one of the field’s most recognisable psychological models, yet the version most frequently taught was not created by Maslow.

His 1943 theory described five broad categories of motivation and proposed a relative ordering. It allowed partial satisfaction, overlapping motives and exceptions.

The pyramid was constructed later by management educators and consultants who wanted a clearer tool for organisational practice. Its visual simplicity drove its international spread.

Marketing adopted the model because it helped move attention from product attributes towards human motives. Brands could position themselves around safety, belonging, esteem and growth.

This contribution remains important. Consumers do not purchase only material objects. They purchase protection, connection, identity, competence and imagined futures.

But the model’s limitations are equally important. Evidence does not support a rigid universal hierarchy. Cultural contexts shape the meaning and priority of needs. Maslow’s samples and methods were limited. The famous pyramid conceals his later revisions and the complexity of his original account.

The responsible conclusion is neither to worship nor discard Maslow.

His theory should be treated as a historical heuristic: a useful prompt for considering multiple dimensions of value, but not a universal law of consumer behaviour.

Modern marketing requires a more flexible image than a pyramid. Human motivation resembles an interacting network in which physical, social, cultural and personal goals change across situations.

The task of marketing is not to place every person on the correct step. It is to understand those changing relationships and create genuine value without exploiting the vulnerabilities they reveal.

References

Berghoff, H. (ed.) (2007) Marketinggeschichte: Die Genese einer modernen Sozialtechnik. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus.

Blackstock, C., Cross, T., George, J. and Brown, I. (2022) ‘Reconsidering Maslow and the hierarchy of needs from a First Nations’ perspective’, Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work, 34(2), pp. 30–41.

Bourdieu, P. (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bridgman, T., Cummings, S. and Ballard, J. (2019) ‘Who built Maslow’s pyramid? A history of the creation of management studies’ most famous symbol and its implications for management education’, Academy of Management Learning & Education, 18(1), pp. 81–98.

Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M. (2000) ‘The “what” and “why” of goal pursuits: Human needs and the self-determination of behavior’, Psychological Inquiry, 11(4), pp. 227–268.

Hofstede, G. (1984) ‘The cultural relativity of the quality of life concept’, Academy of Management Review, 9(3), pp. 389–398.

Kenrick, D.T., Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S.L. and Schaller, M. (2010) ‘Renovating the pyramid of needs: Contemporary extensions built upon ancient foundations’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5(3), pp. 292–314.

Kotler, P. and Keller, K.L. (2016) Marketing Management. 15th edn. Harlow: Pearson.

Levy, S.J. (1959) ‘Symbols for sale’, Harvard Business Review, 37(4), pp. 117–124.

Maslow, A.H. (1943) ‘A theory of human motivation’, Psychological Review, 50(4), pp. 370–396.

Maslow, A.H. (1954) Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Tay, L. and Diener, E. (2011) ‘Needs and subjective well-being around the world’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(2), pp. 354–365.

Wahba, M.A. and Bridwell, L.G. (1976) ‘Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory’, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15(2), pp. 212–240.

Few marketing concepts have travelled as successfully as four short words beginning with the same letter. Product, Price, Place and Promotion appear in introductory textbooks, business plans, university examinations, consultancy presentations and corporate strategy workshops around the world. They are often presented as if they had always belonged together, as though one scholar had simply discovered four timeless laws of marketing and placed them in a memorable diagram.

The actual history is more complex. The 4Ps were not created in a single intellectual moment, and they were not invented by Philip Kotler, despite the frequent association of his name with the framework. Their development resulted from several decades of debate about what marketing managers controlled, how marketing decisions should be classified and how an emerging academic discipline could be transformed into a practical management system.

James Culliton supplied the metaphor that inspired the concept. Neil H. Borden developed and popularised the expression “marketing mix”. E. Jerome McCarthy condensed a much larger collection of marketing variables into the four categories now known as Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Philip Kotler subsequently integrated the model into an influential system of marketing analysis, planning and control, helping generations of students and executives adopt the framework.

The history of the marketing mix is therefore also the history of marketing’s transformation. During the early twentieth century, marketing scholarship was strongly concerned with commodities, institutions and the functions involved in moving goods from producers to consumers. By the middle of the century, attention increasingly shifted towards the decisions of the marketing manager. The 4Ps expressed this managerial turn. Marketing was no longer treated only as a collection of market activities. It became a coordinated set of variables that a company could deliberately combine in pursuit of a target-market response.

This shift had far-reaching consequences. The framework made marketing easier to teach, communicate and apply. It encouraged managers to think beyond advertising and recognise that product design, pricing and distribution were also marketing decisions. At the same time, its simplicity created limitations. Critics argued that the 4Ps reflected the perspective of the seller rather than the customer, fitted manufactured goods better than services and could make marketing appear as a collection of controllable tactical levers rather than a relational, institutional and social process.

Digital platforms and social media have intensified these debates. On Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other platforms, a product may be developed together with a creator community, its price may change dynamically, its distribution may occur through a social-commerce interface and its promotion may be inseparable from entertainment or personal communication. The four categories remain recognisable, but the boundaries among them have become increasingly porous.

The history of the 4Ps therefore matters for more than academic accuracy. Understanding where the model came from reveals what it was originally designed to do, why it became so influential and where it can mislead modern marketers. The marketing mix remains useful, but only when it is treated as a decision framework rather than an unquestionable definition of marketing itself.

Marketing before the Marketing Mix

Marketing practices are much older than the academic discipline that studies them. Merchants, craftspeople and market institutions have long made decisions about products, prices, locations, distribution and persuasive communication. Ancient and medieval societies contained marketplaces, maker’s marks, retail signs, salespeople, transport networks and commercial messages. Eric H. Shaw’s analysis of ancient and medieval marketing demonstrates that exchange-related practices should not be confused with the much later emergence of formal marketing thought (Shaw, 2016).

The modern academic field developed primarily during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as industrialisation, urbanisation, national distribution and mass production created new problems of market coordination. Manufacturers produced goods in greater volumes and sold them across longer distances. Wholesalers, retailers, transport companies, advertising agencies and market researchers became increasingly important.

Early marketing scholars did not initially organise the field around the decisions of a single brand manager. They commonly studied commodities, institutions and functions.

The commodity approach examined how particular goods, such as grain, cotton or manufactured products, moved through markets. The institutional approach focused on organisations such as wholesalers, retailers, brokers and exchanges. The functional approach classified the activities required to complete marketing processes, including buying, selling, transportation, storage, financing, risk bearing and market information.

Robert Bartels’ history of marketing thought shows how these different schools contributed to the formation of marketing as a recognisable academic discipline (Bartels, 1988). D. G. Brian Jones and Mark Tadajewski likewise emphasise that marketing theory evolved through changing economic, institutional and intellectual contexts rather than following one inevitable path towards modern management (Jones and Tadajewski, 2016).

The 4Ps emerged when the managerial approach began to displace or reorganise these earlier perspectives. Instead of asking only which functions existed in a market system, scholars increasingly asked which decisions a marketing executive had to make.

This distinction was fundamental. A functional description might explain that distribution, storage and selling take place. A managerial framework asks how a particular organisation should configure these activities to achieve its objectives.

James Culliton and the “Mixer of Ingredients”

The conceptual ancestry of the marketing mix is usually traced to James W. Culliton, a Harvard professor whose 1948 research bulletin was titled The Management of Marketing Costs. Culliton did not formulate the four Ps. Nor did he present a formal marketing-mix diagram. His contribution was a metaphor.

Culliton described marketing executives as people who combined different ingredients. Some followed established recipes, some adapted recipes to available resources, and others experimented with new combinations. The marketing manager was therefore a “mixer of ingredients”.

This metaphor captured the complexity of managerial decision-making. There was no single universally correct marketing programme. Managers combined variables according to products, competition, customer behaviour, distribution structures and organisational resources.

The culinary comparison was especially effective because it emphasised interaction. Ingredients do not operate independently. Changing one element may alter the effect of the whole mixture. A lower price might support mass distribution but undermine an exclusive brand position. Premium packaging could reinforce quality perceptions but increase cost. Intensive advertising could generate demand that an inadequate distribution system could not satisfy.

The later 4P model inherited this central insight. The Ps were not intended as four separate checkboxes. They formed a coordinated mix.

Neil Borden later explained that Culliton’s description of the marketing executive as a mixer of ingredients inspired him to use the term “marketing mix”. Borden began employing the phrase in his teaching and writing during the late 1940s and used it publicly before his famous 1964 article (Borden, 1964). Historical research presented through the CHARM tradition has likewise traced the transition from Culliton’s metaphor to Borden’s concept and McCarthy’s later classification (Silverman, 1995).

Neil H. Borden and the Creation of the Marketing-Mix Concept

Neil Hopper Borden was a professor of advertising at Harvard Business School and a former president of the American Marketing Association. His career connected advertising research with the growing managerial orientation of marketing.

Borden did not view the marketing mix as four variables. His framework was much more extensive. In his 1964 article, The Concept of the Marketing Mix, he described twelve groups of marketing ingredients:

product planning, pricing, branding, channels of distribution, personal selling, advertising, promotions, packaging, display, servicing, physical handling, and fact finding and analysis.

This list reflected the complexity of post-war marketing management. A marketing executive had to make decisions about what to sell, what name and package to use, how much to charge, where the product should be available, how it should be advertised, which salespeople should represent it and how information should be collected.

Borden also identified market forces that shaped the manager’s choices, including consumer behaviour, trade behaviour, competitor actions and government regulation. The marketing executive could combine controllable ingredients, but did so within an environment that could not be controlled completely.

This point is often lost in simplified explanations. Borden’s marketing mix was not a claim that companies possessed unlimited power over markets. It was a managerial response to uncertainty. The manager had to observe external forces and design a suitable combination of actions.

Borden regarded marketing-mix construction partly as an art. Reliable facts and systematic analysis were important, but management also required judgement. Competitors, customers and institutions responded dynamically, making a universally valid formula impossible.

The difference between Borden’s framework and the later 4Ps is therefore substantial. Borden provided an open-ended inventory and an image of the manager as a creative mixer. McCarthy supplied a compact taxonomy.

Borden is best described as the originator and principal early populariser of the marketing-mix concept, not the inventor of the 4P classification.

Other Attempts to Classify Marketing Decisions

The 4Ps did not emerge in an intellectual vacuum. During the 1950s and early 1960s, several scholars attempted to classify marketing variables more systematically.

John A. Howard organised managerial decisions around categories resembling product, distribution, communication and price. Albert W. Frey distinguished between the “offering” and the “methods and tools” used to market it. The offering included elements such as product, packaging, brand, price and service, while the methods included distribution, personal selling, advertising, sales promotion and publicity.

William Lazer and Eugene Kelley proposed another arrangement involving a goods-and-services mix, a distribution mix and a communication mix. These classifications demonstrate that scholars broadly agreed on the need to organise managerial decisions but did not yet agree on one definitive structure.

The eventual dominance of McCarthy’s system did not necessarily prove that it was theoretically superior in every respect. Its success also reflected clarity, memorability and educational usefulness.

Marketing concepts compete not only through empirical accuracy but through their ability to be taught and remembered. The alliterative structure of four Ps gave McCarthy’s framework a powerful advantage.

E. Jerome McCarthy and the Birth of the 4Ps

Edmund Jerome McCarthy published the first edition of Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach in 1960. The book organised the marketing manager’s major controllable variables into four groups:

Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

McCarthy did not claim to have invented all the decisions contained within these categories. Product development, pricing, distribution and communication had long been recognised as important. His innovation was taxonomic and pedagogical: he grouped a wide range of marketing activities into four memorable managerial categories.

The original 1960 edition comprised approximately 770 pages and presented marketing as a broad managerial discipline rather than merely a four-part formula (McCarthy, 1960). The book covered customers, market analysis, segmentation, planning and environmental conditions alongside the marketing mix.

McCarthy’s four Ps can be understood as a compression of Borden’s larger list.

Product absorbed decisions concerning product planning, branding, packaging and many aspects of service. Price covered pricing policies, discounts and related financial terms. Place represented channels, physical distribution, logistics and market coverage. Promotion combined advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity-related communication.

This condensation made the framework manageable. A student could remember four categories and then place more detailed decisions underneath them. An executive could use the categories to review a marketing plan.

McCarthy’s contribution should therefore be stated precisely:

James Culliton inspired the mixing metaphor. Neil Borden developed and popularised the marketing-mix concept. E. Jerome McCarthy created the four-P classification in 1960.

Product: More Than a Physical Object

The first P is frequently reduced to the item a company manufactures. McCarthy’s managerial approach was broader. Product decisions include the complete market offering: quality, features, design, assortment, brand name, packaging, guarantees, services and lifecycle management.

A product may be a physical good, a service, an experience, an organisation, a person, a place or an idea. Philip Kotler later played an important role in broadening marketing beyond commercial packaged goods, arguing that marketing principles could be applied to services, organisations, causes and public institutions.

Historically, Product brought product planning into marketing rather than leaving it solely to engineering or manufacturing. This was a significant managerial claim. A company should not produce something first and ask marketing merely to advertise it afterwards. Customer needs and market positioning should influence what is offered.

The product category also includes branding. A chemically similar item may acquire a different market position through its name, design, package, service and symbolic associations. David Aaker, Kevin Lane Keller, Jean-Noël Kapferer and Douglas Holt later developed sophisticated theories of brand identity, brand equity and cultural branding, but the Product element already recognised that an offering consisted of more than physical functionality (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993; Kapferer, 2012; Holt, 2004).

For social-media marketing, Product has become increasingly participatory. Companies monitor comments, creator content, reviews and community discussions when developing new features or variants. Software products can be changed after launch. Creators may collaborate in product development. Digital communities sometimes function as testing environments.

Social media therefore does not make Product irrelevant. It makes product decisions more visible, continuous and socially negotiated.

Price: Economic Exchange and Symbolic Positioning

Price is the only traditional P that directly generates revenue; the others generally require expenditure or investment. Yet pricing is not merely a calculation of cost plus margin.

Price communicates position. A high price may signal exclusivity or superior quality. A low price may support accessibility, market penetration or value positioning. Discounts, payment conditions, subscriptions, bundles and credit terms all influence the customer’s perceived exchange.

The inclusion of Price within marketing was important because it linked market strategy with financial decisions. A promotion can attract attention, but the final response depends partly on whether customers perceive the exchange as worthwhile.

Pricing interacts closely with the other Ps. A luxury product sold through exclusive distribution and refined communication requires a coherent price. Heavy discounting may attract short-term demand while weakening a premium identity.

Digital platforms have added new complexity. Prices can be tested, personalised or changed rapidly. Subscription models, freemium products, in-app purchases and creator memberships differ from conventional unit pricing.

Social-media platforms themselves demonstrate an unusual pricing structure. Users generally pay no monetary fee for access, while advertisers finance the system. The user receives a service but also contributes attention, behavioural data and content. Price must therefore be understood as part of a broader exchange rather than only the amount printed on a label.

This supports the later customer-oriented argument that marketers should consider total cost, including time, effort, risk, data and inconvenience.

Place: Distribution, Availability and Market Access

The word Place is perhaps the most misunderstood of the four Ps. It does not simply mean the physical location of a store. It includes all decisions involved in making an offering available to the intended customer.

These decisions include distribution channels, wholesalers, retailers, logistics, storage, transportation, inventory and market coverage. Robert D. Tamilia’s historical work on channels of distribution shows that marketing development cannot be separated from the institutions that connect production and consumption (Tamilia, 2016).

Place was particularly important in the economic context in which McCarthy wrote. Post-war markets were shaped by expanding supermarkets, national retailers, road transport, warehousing and branded consumer goods. A product could not succeed if customers could not find it at an appropriate time and location.

Digital commerce appeared to make Place disappear because a website or app could be accessed from almost anywhere. In reality, Place became more complex. Search engines, app stores, social platforms, digital marketplaces, warehouses, fulfilment centres and last-mile delivery all became parts of distribution.

Instagram Shopping, TikTok Shop and creator affiliate links show how social media transformed Place into a communication environment. A product can be discovered, demonstrated and purchased within or through the same platform.

The social-media feed is therefore not only promotional space. It can also be a point of distribution and sale.

Promotion: One Element, Not the Whole of Marketing

Promotion includes the methods used to inform, persuade and remind audiences. Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, public relations, sponsorship and direct communication belong within this category.

A persistent misunderstanding equates marketing with Promotion. Companies sometimes use “marketing” to mean advertisements, social posts or brochures. The 4Ps framework was partly valuable because it made clear that communication was only one part of marketing.

A weak product cannot be repaired permanently through promotion. An inappropriate price or inadequate distribution system may prevent success regardless of advertising creativity.

Historically, Promotion expanded alongside mass media. Newspapers, magazines, radio and television allowed companies to address large audiences. Advertising agencies developed specialised expertise in media buying, copywriting and visual communication.

Social media changed Promotion by making communication interactive, measurable and participatory. Brands publish their own content, users respond publicly and creators integrate products into personal narratives. Paid, owned and earned media overlap.

A social-media campaign may also affect the other Ps. A creator may participate in product development, provide an affiliate discount, sell through a platform and distribute the product digitally. What appears to be Promotion can therefore incorporate Product, Price and Place.

Why McCarthy’s Framework Became Dominant

The history of ideas is not determined only by originality. Some concepts succeed because they solve communication and educational problems exceptionally well.

McCarthy’s framework had several advantages. It was concise. The categories were sufficiently broad to accommodate many decisions. The alliteration made them easy to remember. They fitted a managerial planning process and could be presented visually.

Basic Marketing also became a highly influential textbook. Repeated editions exposed generations of students to the model. Graduates carried the framework into companies, agencies and universities. Once widely adopted, the 4Ps became self-reinforcing: lecturers taught them because textbooks used them, textbooks used them because lecturers and practitioners recognised them, and practitioners recognised them because they had learned them at university.

Silverman’s CHARM research on the development of the marketing-mix concept demonstrates that diffusion through education and professional communities was essential to its institutionalisation (Silverman, 1995).

The framework also arrived at a favourable historical moment. Marketing management was becoming a distinct organisational responsibility. Companies needed tools for planning and coordination. The 4Ps offered a common language across product, pricing, distribution and communication teams.

Philip Kotler: Populariser, System Builder, but Not the Inventor

Philip Kotler is frequently described online as the inventor of the 4Ps. This is historically incorrect.

McCarthy published the four-P classification in 1960. Kotler began writing Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, and Control in 1963, and the first edition appeared in 1967. Kotler’s book became extraordinarily influential and helped establish marketing management as a systematic discipline. Kotler himself has described beginning the manuscript in 1963 and its publication four years later (Kotler, 2024).

Kotler incorporated the marketing mix into a broader planning framework involving market analysis, segmentation, targeting, positioning, implementation and control. This integration was crucial.

The four Ps alone tell managers which broad instruments can be adjusted. They do not determine which customers should be served or what position the brand should occupy. Kotler’s managerial system connected the mix to strategic analysis.

The familiar sequence became:

analyse opportunities, segment the market, select target groups, determine positioning and configure an appropriate marketing mix.

Kotler also helped internationalise the language of marketing. Numerous editions and translations of Marketing Management brought the framework into classrooms and companies worldwide.

His role was therefore comparable to that of an influential system builder and global educator. He did not create McCarthy’s categories, but he greatly extended their reach and managerial relevance.

The Marketing Mix and the Rise of the Marketing-Management Paradigm

The dominance of the 4Ps reflected a larger shift in marketing thought. Marketing increasingly came to be understood from the perspective of the firm and its manager.

This managerial paradigm focused on decisions the organisation could influence. It offered practical tools for achieving objectives in selected markets.

Ronald Fullerton challenged simplistic histories that presented marketing as progressing through neat production, sales and marketing eras (Fullerton, 1988). Nevertheless, the post-war period did witness growing interest in marketing planning, consumer research, segmentation and managerial control.

The 4Ps were especially compatible with large manufacturing firms selling branded goods. Such firms developed products, established national prices, negotiated distribution and invested in mass-media promotion.

The framework was consequently shaped by its institutional context. This does not invalidate it, but it helps explain its limitations when applied to services, relationships, non-profit organisations or digital ecosystems.

Criticism of the 4Ps

The 4Ps have attracted extensive criticism. One common argument is that they represent the seller’s perspective. Product asks what the company offers, Price what it charges, Place where it distributes and Promotion how it communicates.

Customers may experience the same market differently. They evaluate solutions, total costs, convenience, trust and dialogue.

Another criticism concerns the separation of the four categories. In practice, decisions overlap. Packaging may belong to Product, but also communicates and therefore performs a promotional function. A retail environment belongs to Place but shapes brand perception. Price itself sends a quality signal.

Van Waterschoot and Van den Bulte argued that the 4P classification lacked a sufficiently rigorous basis and contained conceptual overlaps (Van Waterschoot and Van den Bulte, 1992). Their influential reassessment demonstrated that widespread use did not eliminate the need for theoretical scrutiny.

Christian Grönroos criticised the marketing-mix paradigm for encouraging a transactional and internally oriented view of marketing, particularly in services and relationship contexts (Grönroos, 1994). If marketing is reduced to manipulating variables, customers may be treated as passive targets rather than participants in long-term relationships.

The framework can also reinforce departmental isolation. A marketing department may be assigned Promotion while product development, pricing and distribution remain elsewhere, despite all four supposedly forming the marketing mix.

Mark Tadajewski’s critical marketing history offers a broader warning: managerial frameworks should not be presented as neutral, universal truths. They reflect particular institutional interests and assumptions about markets, consumers and organisational control (Tadajewski, 2016).

From 4Ps to 7Ps: Services Change the Marketing Mix

The growth of service industries exposed limitations in a framework developed mainly around goods marketing.

Services are frequently produced and consumed through interactions among customers, employees and systems. Their quality can depend on behaviour, environment and process rather than on a physical object alone.

In 1981, Bernard Booms and Mary Jo Bitner proposed an expanded services marketing mix. They added three elements:

People, Process and Physical Evidence.

People includes employees, customers and others who influence service delivery. Process covers the systems, sequence and procedures through which the service is provided. Physical Evidence includes the tangible signals customers use to evaluate an otherwise intangible offering, such as buildings, uniforms, documents, interfaces or environmental design.

The model first appeared in their contribution to an American Marketing Association conference volume on services marketing (Booms and Bitner, 1981).

The three additions remain highly relevant to digital and social-media services. A platform’s employees and creators affect the user experience. Algorithms and moderation policies are parts of Process. Interface design, reviews, verification marks and profile presentation provide Physical Evidence.

The 7Ps therefore did more than add items to a list. They recognised that marketing may be inseparable from operations and service delivery.

The 4Cs: Reframing the Mix from the Customer’s Perspective

Robert Lauterborn proposed the 4Cs in 1990 as a customer-oriented reinterpretation of the marketing mix.

Product became Customer solution. Price became Customer cost. Place became Convenience. Promotion became Communication.

The 4Cs did not necessarily replace every managerial function contained in the 4Ps. They changed the perspective from which decisions were considered.

A Product focus may encourage a company to begin with what it can manufacture. Customer solution begins with a problem or desired outcome.

Price concentrates on the monetary amount charged. Customer cost includes time, risk, effort and other sacrifices.

Place focuses on distribution controlled by the seller. Convenience asks how easily the customer can access and use the offering.

Promotion can imply one-way persuasion. Communication emphasises dialogue and feedback.

This reinterpretation became especially attractive in relationship and digital marketing, where customers can respond publicly and move between numerous channels.

Nevertheless, the 4Cs are not the original 4Ps and should not be confused with their history. They belong to the continuing debate about how the mix should evolve.

The Marketing Mix in the Age of Social Media

Social media has not abolished the marketing mix. It has changed the meaning and interaction of its elements.

Product in social media

Products are now surrounded by visible user experiences. Reviews, unboxing videos, tutorials, complaints and modifications become part of the market offering’s public identity.

Communities may influence design before and after launch. Software developers release updates in response to user feedback. Consumer brands invite followers to vote on colours, flavours or packaging.

The distinction between product and communication becomes less clear. A shareable package, an interactive app feature or a branded digital filter may be part of the product experience and simultaneously generate promotion.

Creators may also become co-producers. A fashion influencer can collaborate on a collection, attach personal reputation to it and introduce it to an existing community. The creator is not only a promotional intermediary but part of product development and branding.

Price in social media

Social platforms increase price transparency. Consumers compare offers, discuss discounts and publish reactions to price changes.

Affiliate links, creator codes and limited-time offers make price part of social communication. Different creators may distribute different incentives, making pricing measurable at the level of individual partnerships.

Digital business models also complicate monetary price. Social networks offer apparently free access while monetising attention and data through advertising. Customers pay with more than money.

Dynamic pricing, subscriptions, memberships and in-app purchases require marketers to think beyond a single listed amount.

Place in social media

Social media has become a distribution environment. Product discovery, information and transaction may take place within one platform.

A creator video can contain a product link. An Instagram post can carry a shopping tag. TikTok Shop combines entertainment, recommendation and checkout. Livestream commerce turns demonstration and selling into a real-time social event.

Place now includes algorithms, platform interfaces, fulfilment systems and digital marketplaces. The customer’s route to a product may begin in an entertainment feed rather than a store or search engine.

Promotion in social media

Promotion has become participatory. Brands no longer control every public message. Users remix campaigns, create reviews, criticise claims and build alternative meanings.

Influencer marketing embeds commercial communication in personal content. User-generated content allows customers to become distributors of brand imagery. Algorithms determine which promotional messages obtain visibility.

Promotion is therefore no longer a simple transmission from firm to audience. It is a negotiated process involving brands, creators, users and platforms.

Instagram as an Example of the Integrated 4Ps

Instagram illustrates why the four Ps remain useful but difficult to separate.

Consider a beauty brand working with an influencer to launch a cosmetic product. The influencer may participate in selecting the product shade or packaging, contributing to Product. A personalised discount code affects Price. The product can be purchased through a tagged post or connected shop, making Instagram part of Place. The influencer’s Reel, Story and recommendation perform Promotion.

One collaboration activates all four Ps.

The platform also shapes each decision. Its visual norms influence packaging. Its metrics affect promotional content. Its commerce tools structure distribution. Its data may inform pricing and product development.

This demonstrates a major transformation since McCarthy’s period. The marketing manager no longer mixes only internal organisational ingredients. The mix is co-produced with platforms, creators, distributors and consumers.

Borden’s original metaphor may therefore be more useful than a rigid interpretation of four separate boxes. The manager still mixes ingredients, but many of those ingredients are controlled partially by other actors.

The Difference Between the Marketing Mix and Marketing-Mix Modelling

A modern terminological distinction is necessary. The classic marketing mix refers to the managerial configuration of Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Marketing-mix modelling, commonly abbreviated as MMM, is a statistical approach used to estimate how different marketing activities contribute to sales or other outcomes. It often analyses advertising spending across television, search, social media and other channels.

The two concepts are historically related through the idea of combining marketing inputs, but they are not identical.

A company may use the 4Ps to plan its strategy and use an MMM model to estimate the effects of media expenditure. Contemporary statistical models often concentrate heavily on promotional allocation rather than the complete Product–Price–Place–Promotion system.

Confusing the concepts can lead marketers to treat the marketing mix as only a media budget. Historically, this reverses one of McCarthy’s most important lessons: advertising is only one element of marketing.

Why the 4Ps Have Survived

Many alternative frameworks have been proposed, yet none has displaced the 4Ps completely.

Their persistence is partly explained by simplicity. The model provides an accessible starting point for discussing a market offer. It can be applied to a consumer product, service, charity or digital platform with suitable interpretation.

The categories also describe real managerial responsibilities. Organisations still decide what to offer, what exchange to request, how to provide access and how to communicate.

The model is flexible enough to absorb new practices. E-commerce remains a Place decision. Influencer communication belongs partly to Promotion. Subscription pricing remains Price. Digital services remain Products or offerings.

The 4Ps survive not because markets have remained unchanged, but because their categories are broad.

Their weakness is the reverse side of this strength. Categories broad enough to include almost everything may explain relatively little without additional analysis.

The framework therefore works best as a checklist or organising language, not as a complete theory of customer behaviour, competition or society.

Who Really Invented the 4Ps?

The question can now be answered accurately.

James W. Culliton did not invent the 4Ps. In 1948, he described the marketing executive as a mixer of ingredients.

Neil H. Borden did not formulate Product, Price, Place and Promotion as four categories. He transformed Culliton’s metaphor into the concept of the marketing mix, used the term from the late 1940s onward and published an influential explanation in 1964.

E. Jerome McCarthy created the 4P classification and published it in Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach in 1960.

Philip Kotler did not invent the concept or the classification. His Marketing Management, first published in 1967, incorporated the marketing mix into a comprehensive managerial planning system and contributed enormously to its worldwide dissemination.

Booms and Bitner extended the model to seven Ps for services in 1981.

Lauterborn reframed it through four customer-oriented Cs in 1990.

The history is collaborative and cumulative. Reducing it to one inventor hides the intellectual process through which marketing became a management discipline.

The Broader Historical Contribution of the Marketing Mix

The marketing mix changed marketing thought in at least three important ways.

First, it made coordination central. Product, pricing, distribution and communication should support the same market position.

Second, it established marketing as a managerial responsibility extending beyond advertising and selling. Marketing influenced the offer itself and the means by which customers obtained it.

Third, it offered a teachable bridge between analysis and action. Segmentation and customer research identify opportunities; the marketing mix translates strategic choices into operational decisions.

Its limitations are equally instructive. Markets cannot be controlled like laboratory experiments. Customers are not passive recipients. Institutions, cultures, competitors and technologies shape outcomes. Relationships and services often require categories beyond the original four.

Borden’s emphasis on environmental forces and managerial judgement reminds us that the mix was never meant to function mechanically.

Conclusion

The four Ps are among the most recognisable ideas in the history of marketing, but their familiar simplicity conceals a layered intellectual development.

Their story began with James Culliton’s 1948 description of the marketing executive as a mixer of ingredients. Neil H. Borden adopted that metaphor and developed the marketing-mix concept as an extensive set of managerial variables shaped by consumers, competitors, intermediaries and regulation.

E. Jerome McCarthy achieved the decisive simplification. In 1960, he grouped the manager’s controllable marketing variables under Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The alliterative structure made a complicated field easier to teach and apply.

Philip Kotler subsequently embedded the 4Ps within a broader system of analysis, segmentation, targeting, positioning, planning and control. His influential textbooks brought the model to international generations of students and managers. Kotler should therefore be recognised as one of its most important popularisers and system builders, but not as its original inventor.

The framework reflected the post-war rise of professional marketing management and branded mass markets. Its perspective was primarily that of the firm. This made it practical, but also generated criticism. Services scholars added People, Process and Physical Evidence. Customer-oriented thinkers reframed the Ps as solution, cost, convenience and communication. Relationship and critical marketing scholars questioned the image of customers as targets of controllable managerial instruments.

Social media has made these limitations more visible while confirming the continuing relevance of the underlying decisions. A brand on Instagram must still decide what it offers, how value is exchanged, how the offer can be accessed and how it will communicate. Yet those decisions are increasingly interconnected and shared with creators, platforms and communities.

Product can become content. Promotion can become distribution. Place can become an algorithmic feed. Price can become a creator code, subscription or exchange of personal data.

For this reason, the four Ps should neither be discarded as obsolete nor treated as a complete definition of marketing. They remain a durable map of managerial decisions, but the territory has changed.

The most historically appropriate interpretation returns to Borden’s original metaphor. Marketing is not the mechanical activation of four independent levers. It is the continuous mixing of interdependent ingredients under uncertain market conditions.

McCarthy gave those ingredients four memorable containers. Kotler taught managers how to connect them to strategy. Digital platforms have now mixed them together again.

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