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The 4 As of Marketing.

According to Jagdish Sheth and Rajendra Sisodia, poor management as a consequence of not knowing what drives consumers is behind the majority of marketing failures. The authors make the case that consumer knowledge is a much more reliable route to success. Their customer-centric marketing management framework emphasizes what they believe are the most important consumer values—acceptability, affordability, accessibility, and awareness—which they dub the four As.

Acceptability
Acceptability is the extent to which a firm’s total product offering exceeds customer expectations. The authors assert that acceptability is the dominant component in the framework and that design, in turn, is at the root of acceptability. Functional aspects of design can be boosted by, for instance, enhancing the core benefit or increasing reliability of the product; psychological acceptability can be improved with changes to brand image, packaging, design, and positioning.

Affordability
Affordability is the extent to which customers in the target market are able and willing to pay the product’s price. It has two dimensions: economic (ability to pay) and psychological (willingness to pay). Acceptability combined with affordability determines the product’s value proposition. When Peachtree Software lowered the price of its accounting software from $5000 to $199 and started charging for customer support, sales demand increased enormously.

Accessibility
Accessibility, the extent to which customers are able to readily acquire the product, has two dimensions: availability and convenience. Successful companies develop innovative ways to deliver both, as online shoe retailer Zappos does with excellent customer service and return policies, as well as its tracking of up-to-the-minute information about warehouse stock, brands, and styles.

Awareness
Awareness is the extent to which customers are informed regarding the product’s characteristics, persuaded to try it, and reminded to repurchase. It has two dimensions: brand awareness and product knowledge. Sheth and Sisodia say awareness is ripest for improvement because most companies are either ineffectual or inefficient at developing it. For instance, properly done advertising can be incredibly powerful, but word-of-mouth marketing and co-marketing can more effectively reach potential customers.

Sheth and Sisodia base the 4 As framework on the four distinctive roles a consumer plays in the marketplace—seeker, buyer, payer, and user. A fifth consumer role—evangelizer—captures the fact that consumers often recommend products to others and are increasingly critical with the advent of the Internet and social media platforms.

Note that we can easily relate the 4 As to the traditional 4 Ps. Marketers set the product (which mainly influences acceptability), the price (which mainly influences affordability), the place (which mainly influences accessibility), and promotion (which mainly influences awareness).

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