The marketing mix in action: acer

One of the best ways to evaluate the attractiveness of a company’s offer is to use The Marketing Mix. For those of you who didn’t catch our article on that topic, The Marketing Mix is a 60s business tool which can be used to determine how desirable an offer is using 7 factors (the so-called ‘ Ps’ of The Marketing Mix).

To recap, there are 7 Ps (product, price, promotion, place, physical evidence, people, and process), the first 4 of which have been around ever since the conception of The Marketing Mix. Analyzing each of these variables will give you a good idea of whether or not potential customers are likely to be enticed by your offer.

So, let’s put it to the test for the second time around (the first being here), and use The Marketing Mix to analyze the offers that the electronics company Acer sports.

Product

Product is the first of the original four Ps that the Marketing Mix considers. So, let’s take a look at the products they are trying to offer. Acer manufactures medium-range electronics. Is there demand for this product? Yes — especially so if sold at an appropriate price.

Price

On the topic of price, it just so happens to be the second original factor in The Marketing Mix. Taking a look at Acer’s website or any of its retailers shows that their prices reflect the quality of their products, with a slight bit extra making for a premium feel. Their customers don’t feel cheated by the price, but the more-expensive-than-generic element can actually make customers even more willing to purchase their products. Job well done, Acer!

Promotion

For an offer to ever be considered, people have to first know about it — it has to be promoted! In addition to sponsoring the 2012 Olympics, Acer has also teamed up with world-famous DJ Tiesto and created television adverts to project their brand across the globe. Yep, that’s a tick here too.

Place

Place is all about making the “ product available to target consumers” (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). This includes the processes of manufacturing, distributing, and actually selling the product. In addition to having their products stocked in most tech stores worldwide, Acer products are also available for ordering on the internet. That’s more than enough to ask for!

Physical Evidence

As we discussed in our previous example article, physical evidence is a P that applies more to service offerings (to show that they work) than to product ones. Although, we can still add that Acer products are themselves physical evidence, which show their own value.

People

Again, this additional P is service-based. However, Acer Customer Care does seem to have a pretty good track record online, and they constitute most of the people from Acer that you might interact with.

Process

You guessed it — service-based. Because Acer just manufactures the products (and only handles selling some of then), the process of buying an Acer product doesn’t really reflect much on them.

There you have it — an example of the age-old Marketing Mix in action. To sum up what we’ve said about Acer, they satisfy most of the requirements for having an attractive offer — a good product, a fair price, solid promotion, etc.

Did this article improve your understanding of The Marketing Mix? Are you ready to go apply this knowledge to your own business? Do let us know down below, along with all of your other questions, comments, and feedback.

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