Unlocking Marketing: The new 4P’s in the post-covid era

Sumit Sehgal, chief marketing officer, Sheela Foam Ltd.

By Sumit Sehgal

COVID is just not another pandemic, it is one that has created Coronic shifts in the way organisations think and become sustainable in the long term. This is an opportunity for companies to transform themselves and start afresh. Companies will have to reboot business and each business will have to think like a start-up to catch up this year.

The traditional 4P’s of marketing in the post Covid era will get replaced by these: Performance Performance Performance Performance.

The first performance metric that will be measured is People Performance. We are already seeing the impact across organisations worldwide. CHRO’s and CEO’s will have to drastically improve their vitality curve and go back to the Jack Welch formula of not the bottom 10% but 20%. Being the largest cost in any company, People Performance will be paramount to success. This will become more challenging with WFH limitations and re-drawing the line on work life balance.

The next performance parameter will be Product portfolio performance. Over time, brands tend to accumulate many SKU’s and either forget or are terrified to discontinue older SKU’s fearing loss of sales. Over time, the same brand’s SKU’s start to compete with each other. Never has there been a better time than now to slash and rationalise. Brands will focus on fast sellers to turn around capital faster and make operations more productive. Product packaging may get compromised on aesthetic value to get those pennies out. Now every penny counts.

Marketing Performance will undertake a whole new meaning. The CMO will be under pressure daily to account for monies spent vs. monies earned. Sales revenue may finally find its place in the KRA’s of the CMO and that implies a huge orientation change in skills and mindset. Each marketing employee will have to be digitally trained as that will become the largest medium from 2020 and beyond. The CMO designation has been there for long till it became CDMO recently. It is time to change it now to CMBO (Chief Marketing Business Officer). Trusted brands will tend to gain share while others will be at a risk of share loss. This will bring a big conundrum with the medium and smaller brands – to build the brand for long term gain or run promotions and schemes for short term revenue gain.

The last Performance measure that will be imperative in the Coronial Era will be Change Performance. Whilst change is the only constant, never has this been more relevant than now. Businesses will have to rebuild themselves on the principles of fluidity and agility. Quick decision making, empowerment, changing course and failing fast to succeed faster will become the new mantras across organisations if they want to survive and sustain themselves past 2020.

The author is chief marketing officer, Sheela Foam Ltd.

Read Also: How brands can cash in on Augmented Reality in a digitally-driven world

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook