The 5th "P" of Marketing: Participation

Anyone who's involved with marketing knows E. Jerome McCarthy's Four P's of Marketing: Product, Price, Promotion and Place that were established more than 50 years ago. A recent blog post in Entrepreneur.com talks about Paul Adam's (Facebook's Global Brand Experience Manager) stance on marketing and how there has been a 5th "P" recently added to the mix: Participation.

But haven't we had an unwritten 5th "P" since eMarketing began? Seth Godwin's wildly popular book Permission Marketing was published in 1999 and discussed how permission was needed to be successful. I see permission as a core part of participation. By participating in a giveaway/contest/other creative marketing campaign, you're giving permission. (Alan Rosenspan's website gives a great description of how Permission and Participation are different.)

Whether written or unwritten, permission and participation should have been things valued by marketers back in the day when they put together campaigns. Granted, it's easier to connect with the consumer in the digital age, but the principle should have been part of the Four P's of Marketing to begin with. The customer is always first right?