Stop Taking the Pee – that path to growth is paved with Pious intentions.

Long before marketers were talking about funnels, favicons, and flash sales, they had something far simpler to craft their trade: the marketing mix.

The idea first cropped up in the 1940s, when a Harvard journal described marketers as “mixers of ingredients.” It’s a lovely metaphor; the marketer as a chef, blending just the right combination of elements to cook up demand. But, as usual in marketing circles, nobody could quite agree what ingredients belonged in the recipe.

Enter Jerome McCarthy in 1960. In his book Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach, he beautifully distilled the mix down to four controllable variables - four levers you could actually pull to influence customers’ desire to buy:

• Product: what you’re offering, tangible or intangible
• Price: what makes it attractive to the customer and profitable for the company
• Place: where, when and how it’s delivered
• Promotion: how you communicate it

Four levers to affect customer behaviour. Clean. Simple. Tactical.

Marketers can't leave things alone

The beauty of McCarthy’s 4 Ps was the simplicity and adaptability. They’re not the tools themselves but the process of tactical execution, meaning they could evolve with new technologies and new ways of reaching customers.

But marketers tend to be a restless bunch. Give them something simple and effective and they’ll immediately try to “improve” it! Bandwagons get jumped on and self-appointed “gurus” inevitably start tinkering with things they never bothered to understand in the first place.

So fast forward a few years and we get not 5, not 6, but 7 Ps of marketing – now with 75% extra marketing goodness! I’ll be generous for a moment and acknowledge that the extra 3 Ps - People, Processes, and Physical Evidence - were intended to be a way of recognising that “services” differ from physical “products” by the well-meaning Bernard Booms & Mary Bitner in the early 80’s. Well, fair enough… to a point. But McCarthy was always crystal clear that services are products too, just intangible ones.

Think of a lobster: the one you pick up at the supermarket comes with services baked in (caught, packaged, preserved). The lobster you order in a restaurant comes with the same services, only delivered in real time. Both are still Products.

So yes, Booms & Bitner had good intentions, but I think the mistake they made is forgetting that the 4 Ps were the tactical checklist, and not the tools themselves. Of course, the way we execute changes as technology evolves, but the beauty and simplicity of the 4Ps was to focus tactical execution onto Promoting the right Product/service in the right Place at the right Price. Sub-categorise the Product P into tangible and intangible if you must, but don’t muddy the waters. The extra 3 Ps still belong under Product!

But the train kept rolling. Soon, we were treated to 9 Ps as multitudes of bad marketers added words like Packaging (already part of Product) and Positioning (which is strategic, not tactical). And why not treat yourself to 12 Ps and throw in words like Passion and Precision? Why stop there? If you Google “How many marketing P’s are there?”, you’ll find a site celebrating the idea that there are 44 of the damn things! It would be funny if it weren’t so damaging.

The problem with 'purpose'

Which brings us to the trendiest boardroom bandwagon of them all – the dreaded Purpose P. We’ve all been at it for the best part of 2 decades now, haven’t we? Ever since large corporates desperately tried to distance themselves from the “dirty capitalism” that caused the global financial crash in 2008. From people like Simon Sinek (who made a lot of money telling us that people don’t buy what we do, they buy ‘why’ we do it) to brands like Dove (who convinced women that everyone is beautiful whilst selling them products to “improve” their looks), every self-respecting brand now has some sort of higher purpose beyond selling stuff that customers want to buy. Whole conferences have been built around the idea that it’s “brand purpose” that drives growth.

The only trouble is - it doesn’t!

As Nick Asbury points out in his fantastic book: The Road To Hell: How purposeful business leads to bad marketing and a worse world, far from driving business growth or social progress, purpose has become a hollow buzzword that often leads brands down the wrong path of ‘virtue-washing’. Indeed, the great bastions of evidence-based marketing science – the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute – have published research showing that purpose (as noble as it may be to behave as a responsible business) does not drive growth, like its proponents have long claimed.

Purpose can make you feel good inside, but it doesn’t shift product. Worse, it muddies the tactical waters and distracts marketers from the real levers they should be pulling.

A better P for hospitality

If you’re really hell bent on finding some new Ps to play with, how about one that actually drives growth in hospitality: Politeness.

The way your staff stand at the check-in desk. Whether they make eye contact or say ‘good morning’ in the corridor. Whether they make guests feel important and expected, instead of slouching behind a monitor. These tiny cues of etiquette and respect do more to influence repeat bookings than any lofty brand manifesto ever will.

Because in hospitality, the product is the experience. And that experience is delivered not just through the tangible rooms, décor, or facilities, but through the intangible human interactions along the way. A friendly smile, a helpful answer, a sense that the guest is genuinely valued - these are not “nice-to-haves.” They are the product.

Compare that with over-automated check-in kiosks, staff trained to follow scripts rather than show warmth, or managers who see guests as data points rather than people. Those things might make operations cheaper, but they chip away at the core relationship between host and guest. True hospitality is making your guest feel welcomed, cared for, and respected. Period!

That’s why politeness isn’t just etiquette; it’s economics. It drives customer satisfaction, positive reviews, and repeat bookings. It builds trust and loyalty. And in a sector as competitive as hospitality, it’s these details that tip the balance between a one-time visitor and a lifelong guest.

Four Ps was always enough

McCarthy gave us four tactical levers that still work perfectly today: the right Product, at the right Price, in the right Place, promoted in the right way. Everything else is either a sub-category, a misunderstanding, or a distraction.

And yes, politeness is still part of the Product P.

A final P-oint

If you’re still hell bent on adding more Ps, don’t panic. I’ve built a tool that generates as many as you like. Simply type in the number of Ps you want to add to the mix, sit back, and admire your work! It’s light-hearted, slightly provocative, and a good reminder of why we should stop trying to improve established marketing theory and get on with actually marketing!

👉 Try the P Generator here