AT&T · Bangkok Post
The ‘Four Ps’ of business are not wrong, just outnumbered
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A few months ago I sat through a marketing plan presentation that could have been delivered, almost word for word, in 1975. The product positioning was sharp. The pricing tiers were modelled to the decimal. Distribution was mapped channel by channel. The promotional calendar was colour-coded for the year ahead.
Key facts
- A few months ago I sat through a marketing plan presentation that could have been delivered, almost word for word, in 1975
- On its own terms, it was an excellent plan
- In a randomised study, software engineers using GitHub’s AI coding assistant completed a coding task 55.8% faster than a control group without it
- It partnered — first through a joint venture, and since 2019 through a full licence to Coffee Concepts Thailand, itself a partnership between Fraser & Neave of Singapore and Maxim’s Group of Hong Kong, two operators who already knew how to
- The chain grew from a single store at Central Chidlom to 500 outlets by 2024, with another 300 planned by 2030
- Pfizer and BioNTech had already been working together since 2018 on an unrelated mRNA-based flu vaccine — Pfizer supplying global manufacturing scale and regulatory reach, BioNTech supplying an mRNA platform Pfizer did not have of its own.
Summary
On its own terms, it was an excellent plan. When I asked who was key for the launch, and how much of a key competitor’s speed advantage came from the way its people used the AI tools already sitting on their desks, the room went quiet. Not because the questions were unfair. Because a plan built entirely and beautifully around four variables had never been asked to think about the other three.
Every business student of the last two generations has learned some version of the same four words: Product, Price, Place, Promotion. E Jerome McCarthy coined the classification in 1960, in a textbook written mostly for American manufacturers deciding how to move soap and cereal through a market with three television channels and a handful of national retailers.