The Marketing Mix, a basic tool of Marketing managers, is defined by Microsoft Encarta World English Dictionary as: "mar•ket•ing mix (plural mar•ket•ing mix•es) noun mixture of marketing techniques: the particular mixture of marketing techniques, for example, pricing, packaging, and advertising, used to promote the sale of a product" (2000). Marketing Mix is also known as the Four P's. The Four P's stand for Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. This paper will look at the Marketing Mix by explaining what the Four P's are and show how a business would use the mix to market a product or service.
             The Marketing Mix is used to market a product or service, this is done by using the Four P's to establish what the Product is, the Price, the Place and the Promotion. Marketing managers bring the elements of the Four P's together, combining them to achieve a greater result from their combination then each of the individual effects of the Four P's (Anderson, Vincze 2000). The Four P's consist of the following:
             • Product – This is the good or service that the company provides. However it is more then the product or service itself, it is also the benefits that meet the needs of the consumers of the product/service. It used to be considered that superior product would provide consumers, and sell the product. This has changed, according to the textbook Strategic Marketing Management; the consumer is now becoming involved in the development and research of products (Anderson 2000). A good example is the market research that auto companies do to find out what a consumer wants in a vehicle.
             o Product Development – This is an area that has changed a great deal, in an effort to avoid marketing myopia; the product development has been geared towards consumer involvement, and feedback into the development of the products or service. The idea is that if th...