4 P's of Marketing and the Search for Joy

The Thought

The increasing seats of MBA in India points towards the fact that MBA is the in thing . What are the 4P's of this industry? Well, It all started with Graduate, remember the movies of Amitabh Bacchan with Shashi Kapoor proudly saying, I am a graduate. Then it moved on to BSc, to Engineering, and now MBA. Why do most Engineers today are running towards MBA and what happens even if they do?

They say, as the society grows, the minimum level of expectancy grows along with it. Long back, an Engineering degree was enough for being respected in the society, but the so coveted Engineering degree has began loosing its charm. But there lies a difference.BA or BSc, when lost their power, they lost it universally, by which I mean that even the parents began to live with the fact that BA/BSc is not a great degree to acquire.
This never happened with Engineering. A parent still proudly shares that their child is an Engineer, but ask the child, who is working in a big MNC with average 40,000 pay ." are you happy with your Job?"
and You get nothing to guess the right answer, it stands tall "NO".

The Reason can be tracked back to the 4 P's of Marketing.
The First of the 4 P's, "

1. Product- which is the most important aspect is never taken care of. When an engineering student starts his studies, he is young, in late teens, 19 around and all he wants is a Job which pays well. ( thats the parameter of Success). To get it he/she works hard, and four years hence, when he/she gets it, the parents are happy along with him.
Then after One year, he realizes that the job he/she is doing is not making him/her any better. He is being paid well, but then the definition of payment starts changing, it increases its domain, and now, Job satisfaction, responsibility to do creative projects etc starts creeping in slowly in this P.
The Businesses realize this and starts giving them certificates of honor and great achievement, but after the initial buzz goes off, he/she realizes that even this certificates is not worth it, and everyother person has it.

Out of the 4 P's.  Price, Place , Promotion everything is fine, but the core, Product is not able to better itself.
Businesses realize this fact, and go on giving increments and increments, and the child goes on taking responsibility after responsibility, Home Loan, Car loan, Insurance policy, health plan, and above all marriage.
He/she constantly negate the voice inside, and one fine day, the voice stops talking.
This is where out of the 4 P's, three remain performing well, price remains high, Place is great, and the Promotion is done well by the family and friends, with facebook and Orkut, giving the product the opportunity to showcase which country one has traveled on-site, or the big hotel stays, and a big Dance party using the Albums.

Since every one in the society is with a similar product, they comment on each other successes ( big failure), but the inside remains poor, empty and what happens is
" At night, when its dark, and the child is alone- even though grown up- feels fear, misses the old times, dreams don't come, neither does sleep, so goes for quick solution.
Pops up a pill, and sleep, only to find the next morning, a non energetic Man/Women".

How can you make yourself a Better Product?

Among the 4 P's, if the Product is not good/happy, the rest 3 becomes an endless pursuit of nothingness.
Even an MBA degree is worthless if one has not realized what he/she really want to do which gives Joy.
MBA is just closing of one another gate, rather than opening up new horizons if the thought behind it is not clear.

All I am asking is just for sometime, before you reach this stage, break the jinx, and go for what you love. Yes, Run towards your fear, not away from it.