implications of any recommendation he might have made in the areas of the several elements of the mix. Referring to the forces, we can ask if all the pertinent market forces have been given due consideration. Continual reference to the mix chart makes the authors to feel that the students' understanding of marketing is strengthened. The constant presence and use of the chart leaves a deeper understanding that marketing is the devising of programs that successfully meet the forces of the market. In problem solving the marketing mix chart is a constant reminder of the following (Mei, 2011):
1) The fact that a problem seems to lie in one segment of the mix must be deliberated with constant thought regarding the effect of any change in that sector on other areas of marketing operations. The necessity of inte-gration in marketing thinking is ever present.
2) The need to study carefully the market forces as they might bear on problems in hand. In short, the mix chart provides an ever ready checklist as to which areas to think when considering marketing questions or dealing with marketing problems.
Marketing mix resource allocation and planning challenges
Marketing mix resource allocation and planning has assumed prominence as companies have attempted to optimize spending across all marketing activities. That is no surprise, considering that senior marketing executives are under increasing pressure to help their organizations achieve organic sales growth with tighter, top down- driven budgets and short time horizons to deliver tangible payback on their marketing campaigns. With less influence over the size of their budgets, senior marketers must instead attempt to maximize the impact of the dollars they distribute for programs across multiple products, markets, channels, and specific customers, using an increasingly complex mix of new and traditional media.
As a result, companies have looked toward analytical and modeling techniques in an attempt to better link marketing investments to meaningful and measurable market responses (and, ideally, to one or more financial metrics). Packaged goods and pharmaceutical mar-keters, in particular, were among the pioneers in explo-ring marketing mix analytics and data-driven econometric models. Marketing scholars also have contributed to a more sophisticated body of analytical and modeling literature that offers both theoretical and substantive insights for marketing mix resource allocation decisions and planning practices. In many respects, marketing practitioners and researchers were early advocates for bringing analytics to business practice (Hosseini, 1384).
Nevertheless, changing customer dynamics and advances in media technology presents novel challenges.