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F6-03·F6 — The Marketing Mix

Price — The Only P That Generates Revenue

The productive tension

Price as revenue-generating leverandas brand-positioning signal

most marketers treat it as neither

The synthesis

Price is the only P that brings money in; the other three only spend it. Price is also the loudest thing a brand says about itself — louder than any advertising. Marketers who treat price as a number ignore the signal. Marketers who treat price as a signal ignore the arithmetic. The discipline is to set price as a strategic positioning decision and then manage it as a profit lever with the seriousness and rigour it deserves. The P&L and the positioning share a single number, and getting that number right is the fastest route to profit any marketing decision can take.

Learning objectives

  • Explain why price is the most under-managed P and who ends up managing it by default
  • Compare cost-plus, competitive, and value-based pricing and defend value-based as the superior default
  • Apply the Nagle & Holden pricing pyramid to a real pricing decision
  • Quantify the profit impact of a 1% price change versus a 1% volume change (the McKinsey finding)
  • Articulate price as a positioning signal as well as a revenue lever

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