How is a Marketing Model from 1979 Still Relevant?

Some models used for marketing are incredibly enduring – yet with some consideration of the content they can be applied to many and varied situations. Porter’s Five Forces of Competition is definitely one of those models.

I was considering that this week when refreshing material for the Responsible Marketing module of the CIM | The Chartered Institute of Marketing Level 4 Certificate qualification. The syllabus does specifically include reference to the model, but considering it through a responsible lens rather than more broadly as it is used elsewhere in CIM qualifications.

So what is the Five Forces model, and how does it work for Responsible Marketing

Porter’s Five Forces model is all about the factors which affect the competitiveness in an industry – looking at wider factors which influence the intensity of competition beyond just the direct inductry competitors. Of course if we are looking at sustainable and responsible marketing as an over-arching ethos then the situation changes for the competitive elements:

• There may be less, but more focussed competition within the industry, specialising in ethical, environmental, or similar areas of products or services
• Changing market situations enable new entrants to find different pathways into an industry, with some of the traditional barriers removed
• Substitutes can come from very different sources as a more responsible or sustainable solution may be provided with an unexpected sources
• Suppliers may have more power because of the specialised nature of their offer, meaning that relationships become very important to ensure consistent supply
• Customers are more informed, increasing their power

What this illustrates is that a model can often be applied to many different contexts, and just because it has been around a long time – since 1979 in the case of Porter’s Five Forces – doesn’t mean it is not valid.

The original Harvard Business Review article “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy” is available from HBR here and a video we have produced to explain the model and its elements, in broad terms rather than focused through a responsible lens is available here (we have got better at lighting for videos since making that one!).

If you’d like to know more about the Level 4 Certificate Responsible Marketing or Level 6 Diploma Societal Marketing modules please get in touch.

A couple of final points, many years ago in the early days of YouTube I worked with a few people making some videos and we broke down the Five Forces model into 5 separate videos – for a while they had all received more views than the video by Michael Porter himself on the topic! I was always concerned about whether I was accurate in the descriptions used…

And secondly, another model from Porter from about the same time, the Value Chain, does still have validity, but requires some fundamental changes to use today. That should be the subject of another post though.