My Interpretation of ‘Marketing Myopia’ by Theodore Levitt
The Harvard Business Review by Theodore Levitt called ‘Marketing Myopia’ gave me very valuable insights and learning of a very useful marketing philosophy matched against the reality produced by different global industries worldwide. The ‘Myopia’ refers to the shortsightedness of global managers of top industry controlling firms of being too focused on their discrete products/services that they forget about their customers and the fact that their business ultimately designed on their choice patterns. Through elaborate analysis, the author explained to us what happens when companies become too much ‘product-oriented’ and not so much ‘consumer-oriented’.
The author tried to established the philosophy that ‘there is no such thing as a growth industry’. This philosophy sees an industry’s growth potential as not a macro-process that can only be forecasted but not managed, but the result of cumulative decisions that the top leaders of the industry make in terms of marketing. No matter what tremendous growth potential an industry shows today, it will eventually shift into a plateau or even declining trend if the companies focus too much on their product instead of how customers perceive of them. The author brought out many realistic examples of such occurrences including the railroad-sector, which was seen more as a ‘railroad-oriented’ industry rather than a ‘transportation-oriented’ one, the Hollywood industry, which was marketed as a movie-business rather then ‘entertainment-business’ etc.
On the other hand, the author also brought about the examples of industries to display the other side of spectrum such as the nylon and glass industry, which was always consumer centric and therefore, moved with the consumers shift of preference and always found new growth opportunities to explore.
The author then went to explain factors that usually cause the top leaders to fall into the trap of marketing myopia...