Marketing Myopia

Date:                September 11, 2017

Article -         Marketing Myopia                        

                Harvard Business Review – by Theodore Levitt

                This is an updated reprint from the original article.  

                This paper was first published in 1960 in the Harvard Business Review, a journal of                         which he was an editor. Marketing Myopia suggests that businesses will do better in the                         end if they concentrate on meeting customers’ needs rather than on selling products.

                Fundamental idea of The Myopic culture, Levitt postulated, would pave the way for a                         business to fail, due to the short-sighted mindset and illusion that a firm is in a so-called                         'growth industry'. This belief leads to complacency and a loss of sight of what customers                         want.

                After 57 years Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt, one of the most quoted                                 documents in marketing, still holds its place as a pillar of marketing education and                         growth. But do the same principles still hold true? What happens if marketing Myopia                         has actually contributed to the downfall of brands due to a new term – Management                         Myopia?

                Al Ries of Ries and Trout) Ad Age believes that management of some companies                                 (Kodak, Sears, Xerox, Dell, etc.) has actually pushed them out of the minds of consumers                 and over the edge of competition. Ries was quoted with the following in the article                         “Marketing Myopia Revisited.”

        “Management has fallen in love with brands without realizing that every brand has a         potentially fatal weakness. A brand stands for a category. Once a brand becomes strongly         embedded in consumers’ minds, it’s almost impossible to move that brand into another         category.”

        Think of brand names that have become a category:

                Vaseline (Petroleum jelly)                         Jet-ski (personal watercraft)

                Band-Aids (protective bandage)                Bubble wrap (sealed air                                                                                 wrapping)

                Crock-pot (slow cooker)                        Zamboni (ice resurfacer)

                Seeing Eye dog (a guide dog/Seeing Eye is special training done in by a company                         in Morristown, NJ)