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    The philosophy of the Four Es – Why brands need to embrace this model in their marketing

    To compete successfully on the market, brands must add the four Es to their marketing strategies - emotions, experiences, engagement and exclusivity. We have highlighted this model before, but only in connection to music, until now. With an immense interest from our readers to learn more about the four Es marketing model, we have explored it deeper. This is the first post in a series that takes a look at this marketing model outside the context of music.

    21st Century Marketspace

    Anyone who has ever stepped foot in a business class knows about the ‘Four Ps of Marketing’, developed by Professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 60s, further spread by Philip Kotler. This model suggests that successful marketing campaigns must have the right mix of product, price, placement and promotion to position a product on the market. The four Ps was however developed for the marketplace as it looked in the 60s, and not for today’s cluttered marketspace (yes, the market is a space, and not a place anymore). Don’t get us wrong though. The four Ps is still a very useful model, but it does have a few inherent flaws in a world where it is increasingly harder for companies to differentiate themselves based on specific product features alone (that are easily copied over night).

    Nowadays, when the brand is the most important asset for a company, not the product, brands have to engage individuals in a deeper, more humane and multidimensional way. As a complement to the four Ps, brands must add the four Es of emotions, experiences, engagement and exclusivity, to compete successfully on the market.

    4Es

    Music is perhaps the communication tool that most powerfully embraces all of the four Es. Music is emotions put into communication, it builds memorable experiences that engage people into two-way conversations, it may easily service brands as a distinguisher from competitors, thus helping brands to position themselves in the consciousness of their customers, owning an exclusive position in their minds. But the four Es does not end at music, this marketing model goes much further…

    In the following series, we’ll go over each E in more depth, showing just how emotions, experiences, engagement and exclusivity work - helping turn ordinary customers into loyal fans of your brand. We’ll also present case studies illustrating how the four Es can be put into practice.

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    A new marketing mix for the 21st Century: 4Es (with audio)

    Anyone who’s ever stepped foot in a business class knows about McCarthy’s ‘four Ps of Marketing’, which is still a very useful model. But, it does have a few inherent limitations in today’s saturated markets, where it’s increasingly harder for a company to capture attention or differentiate itself based on specific products or service benefits. For brands to succeed today, they must engage individuals in a deeper, multidimensional way. Today, brands must add something more human to the equation. The four Ps must become the four Es, consisting of emotions, experiences, engagement and exclusivity.

    Listen to ‘The new marketing mix for the 21st century: 4Es’.

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    4Es - The music marketing mix

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    Many of us who studied marketing are familiar with McCarthys marketing mix. How his four Ps and the right ingredients of product, price, placement and promotion help to position a brand on the market. Fifty years later and still many marketing departments follow a model that was meant for a world before branding, new technology and hyper competition changed everything. Don’t get me wrong, the four Ps still work great for products but in today’s world where a company selling experiences, association and lifestyles more and more, this model is long since outdated.

    Branding today is about positioning a company in the mind of the target group. Companies today focus on building a more emotional and exclusive brand that offers an experience that engages their audience. This is what I named the four Es in brand communication. Just as in McCarthy’s model, each brand needs its own unique recipe. How these ingredients are to be mixed depends on what type of brand it is and in which segment it’s active. For a brand with retail stores the experience is probably more important than for an Internet brand where perhaps engagement is in focus.

    In the following four posts I will present how the four Es model works in music branding. How the right music mix helps a brand to be more emotional, engaging, experience based and exclusive. I will start next week with the first post on emotions.

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