Marketing mix

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MANAGEMENT DECISION 32,2

Has today’s dominant marketing mix paradigm become a strait-jacket? A relationship building and management approach may be the answer.

From Marketing Mix to Relationship Marketing:
Towards a Paradigm Shift in Marketing
Christian Grönroos

approach to marketing which eventually has entered the marketing literature[2, 4-14]. A paradigm shift is clearly under way. In services marketing, especially in Europe and Australia but to some extent also in North America, and in industrial marketing, especially in Europe, this paradigm shift has already taken place. Books published on services marketing[15-17] and on industrial marketing[18-20] as well as major research reports published are based on the relationship marketing paradigm. A major shift in the perception of the fundamentals of marketing is taking place. The shift is so dramatic that it can, no doubt, be described as a paradigm shift[21]. Marketing researchers have been passionately convinced about the paradigmatic nature of marketing mix management and the Four P model[22]. To challenge marketing mix management as the basic foundation for all marketing thinking has been as heretic as it was for Copernicus to proclaim that the earth moved[23, 24]. The purpose of this report is to discuss the nature and consequences of the dominating marketing paradigm of today, marketing mix management of the managerial school (cf.[25] and how evolving trends in business and modern research into, for example, industrial marketing, services marketing and customer relationship economics demand a relationship-oriented approach to marketing. Relationship building and management are found to be an underlying facet in the research into these areas. Relationship marketing is suggested as one new marketing paradigm, and a number of consequences for marketing and management of a relationship-type marketing strategy is discussed based on the notion of a marketing strategy continuum. Finally, the