Questions about the method

The Marketing Canvas Method helps clarify and act on the marketing strategy of one offer — a product or a service — in one market: one category in one geography. Created to teach students marketing strategy as an alternative to the 4P, 5C and SAVE models, it is applied by entrepreneurs and SMEs with a single offer, and by corporates offer by offer.

It runs in Steps 0 to 5, including Step 3.5, in order, and every output feeds the next input. Twenty-four dimensions describe the marketing of the offer; nine archetypes name the posture its situation calls for. See the steps.

Entrepreneurs and SMEs with a single offer, and corporates offer by offer, geography by geography. Students learn marketing strategy with it: it was created as an alternative to the 4P, 5C and SAVE models.

Two profiles set the depth. The Essential profile is for practitioners and students: one statement per role slot. The Evidence profile is for case production and research: sub-questions and sourced evidence. Both produce the same output.

The Business Model Canvas comes first. What kind of value the company creates and how it captures it are business-model questions, settled before Step 0. MCM then takes the business model as a given input and produces the marketing-strategic reading inside it.

The Marketing Canvas Method then works on the marketing strategy of one offer: who it is for, where it stands, what goal it pursues, what decides that goal, why the gaps exist, and what to do, in what order.

It is read, not chosen. The growth stage of the category (M3), its economic value (M4) and the revenue lever selected in Step 2 (Acquisition, Retention or Stimulation) point to one row of the selection matrix: the most specific matching row decides. A High Disruption Level in M10 calls for Pivot Pioneer (A5) whatever the rest. A combination that contradicts itself is a Strategic Mismatch, resolved by revisiting M3, M4 or the lever.

An archetype is a posture, not an identity: the same company can hold different postures in different markets, tiers or phases. The nine are A1 Disruptive Newcomer, A2 Efficiency Machine, A3 Brand Evangelist, A4 Stagnant Leader, A5 Pivot Pioneer, A6 Value Harvester, A7 Scale-Up Guardian, A8 Niche Expert and A9 Category Creator. See the selection matrix.

Each posture gives ten role slots to the dimensions that decide the goal: two Fatal Brakes and two Primary Accelerators (target +2 or more), two Secondary Brakes and two Secondary Accelerators (target +1 or more), which make the Vital 8, and two Growth Drivers (+1 or more, recommended).

A Growth Driver can reuse a Vital 8 dimension; that dimension carries one score, with the target of its Vital 8 role. So you score 8 to 10 dimensions, not 24.

On the Maturity Ladder: +3 Champion, +2 Strong, +1 Functional, −1 Weak, −2 Flawed, −3 Absent. No statement is ever scored 0: each one either helps the goal set in Step 2 or hurts it. In the Evidence profile, a dimension that takes the mean of its sub-questions can land on 0, Mixed.

In a workshop, an agreement vote (from completely disagree to completely agree) is an input signal, then converted to a rung: after a disagree, is the dimension not addressed, addressed wrongly, or addressed but insufficiently? A +3 needs a named benchmark.

Step 3.5 is the analytical bridge between Step 3's diagnosis and Step 4's action design. Its purpose is to ensure that initiatives generated at Step 4 attack named mechanisms rather than score gaps. Without an explicit mechanism step, the leap from gap to remedy risks treating symptoms rather than causes.

See Step 3.5.

Yes. The posture is read from the market situation of the offer, the growth stage of its category, its economic value and the lever, plus the M10 override, not from the sector, the size of the company or its position.

Yes. Named dimensions, coded IDs and a defined scoring logic make the method well suited to AI-assisted analysis: the method decides the order and the rules, the AI works within them. The book has a chapter on the method and AI.

This site covers the architecture of the method in its current version, v5.1, generated from its canonical files. The book Marketing Strategy, Programmed: The Marketing Canvas Method (first edition, 2026, ISBN 9789090419688) is the method in print, with 20 case studies; it was written before version 5, which added Step 3.5, the Operating Baseline and the Maturity Ladder.

The book is on Amazon.com and laurentbouty.com. Free resources (canvas poster, cheat sheets) are at laurentbouty.com/store/free-resources.

The Marketing Canvas Method is published under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence: you may share it for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to Laurent Bouty and without changes. For other uses, get in touch.