EMAM or ‘Electronic Marketing Activity Management’ is a framework for looking at how electronic resources are being used in marketing activities to help us manage them.

This framework was developed with a differing mindset of marketing than is traditionally held by many. Here we see marketing as a dialogue with many participants and communities in order to create and deliver value.

In order to maintain this dialogue we have to participate in, coordinate and implement many activities and resources. So not so much as a mixer of ingredients, but as a node in a network of resources – be it people, technology, knowledge or time – and a network of activities.

In essence, marketing is rising in complexity as the many and differing electronic resources and activities we conduct and manage evolve.

Marketing is all about resources – people, technology, knowledge and time!

A really interesting article written by Grönroos, in (1996) noted that we are increasingly seeing a move towards a more resource-oriented approach to marketing.

This resource approach focuses on the management and planning of core competencies and resources, not just seeing the product as the core resource we are managing. He noted that this is what forms the basis and foundation for successful market relationships, and not just the facilitation of an exchange – a sale.

A resource-based view further places increased emphasis on marketing as a series of activities for fulfilling promises and delivering value, moving away from focusing on the product. Grönroos discussed four types of resources as key to marketing effectiveness and efficiency – personnel, technology, knowledge and time. With EMAM we focus on the use of technology resources in marketing.

Introducing EMAM!

So EMAM is a framework for looking at how electronic resources are being used and managed in marketing activities. This framework was introduced in a paper published in the Marketing Review in 2005. You can read our summary of the key article insights here.

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EMAM moves away from traditional frameworks of marketing (e.g., 4P’s and 7Ps) to focus on the resources and activities we as marketers manage and conduct in order to participate in an ongoing dialogue with the many participants and communities we coexist with, in order to create and deliver value.

One important thing to note though is that this framework is not structured around the specific technologies – the electronic resources themselves, but the activities that we use them for.

Given the rapid development of electronic resources marketers increasingly focus on specific technologies as and when they are popular and define their marketing activities by these (e.g., we need a web marketing strategy, an SMS marketing campaign, a social media marketing strategy).

This is a very myopic view and can become quickly outdated as the technology evolves. But this is not new behaviour in how we treat new innovations and their impact on our profession, it also occurred with newspapers, radio, TV in defining marketing by the innovation, not by what it can help us do better.

Sources

• Grönroos, C. (1994). Relationship marketing: Strategic and tactical implications. Management Decision, 34/3, 5-14.
• Page-Thomas, K. L. (2005). Electronic Marketing: The Bigger Picture. Marketing Review, 5(3 (Autumn)), 243-262.

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Traditionally, marketers were seen as a mixer of ingredients … well, this is how Culliton in (1948) from Harvard Business School, McCarthy in (1960) from Michigan State University and Borden in (1964), from Harvard Business School, viewed and wrote about what marketers do! In essence, they saw that we mix elements together to create marketing strategies, campaigns and specific activities to implement these.

Culliton in (1948) coined the phrase of a marketer as a ‘mixier of ingredients’ and then McCarthy (1960) and Borden (1964) devised a list of what these ingredients were from their observation of the industry. They developed a list of 12 areas and reduced these to 4 elements, which is now commonly known as the 4P’s or ‘Marketing Mix’ (Product, Price, Promotion, Place).

This was how the famous marketing mix was created. However it was the writings of leading authors such as Philip Kotler globally or more recently Frances Brassington & Stephen Pettitt in the UK who popularised it by structuring the early editions of their books around this framework. These books are distributed by Pearson Publishing on a mass scale to marketing educators, professional bodies and practitioners world wide.

So is it still relevant today?

Well, it still dominates many mindsets and attitudes in marketing education, marketing management and the strategic marketing planning process. However this framework is grounded in a mass marketing world and a transactional approach to marketing where the focus is the product, its features and the facilitation of an exchange – or a sale.

I think many agree this is no longer the world we live in! And as we have evolved, so too should the marketing frameworks we use, write about and teach.

Although is does still have some use today, it is clear that the marketing mix is not very well fitted or adaptive to the competitive position and changing marketing landscape emerging in most industries in the western world.

These changes include a rise in internationalisation, development of technologies influencing how we produce, talk about and deliver goods and services, from the transition from product-led to service-led economies and a focus on relationships and people more than a product offering and brand.

The development of the services mix, or the 7P’s of services marketing (Product, Price, Promotion, Place, Physical Evidence, Process & People) by Boom and Bitner in (1981) was one development to address the limitations of the marketing mix.

However like the marketing mix, the services marketing mix is still not well suited to the rising use of electronic resources in marketing and helping us to manage and implement these resources effectively.

In essence, marketing is rising in complexity, especially as the many differing electronic resources and activities we conduct and manage evolves. So perhaps we need a framework that focuses on resources and activities instead of a product offering?

Sources

• Booms, B.H., Bitner, M.J. (1981 ), “Marketing strategies and organization structures for service firms”, in Donnelly, J.H., George, W.R. (Eds), Marketing of Services, Conference Proceedings: American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL, pp.47-51 .
• Borden, N. H. (1964). The concept of the marketing mix. Journal of Advertising Research, June, pp2-7.
• McCarthy, E. J. (1960). Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach. Homewood IL: Irwin

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