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    Fall 2010 Group 8 Marketing Myopia

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    Manjari Mundanad
    Theodore Levitt's 1960 article "Marketing Myopia" argues that companies often focus too narrowly on their products instead of their customers' needs, which can lead to decline. Levitt asserts that industries should define themselves based on the customer benefits they provide rather than their products. He uses examples like the petroleum industry to show how companies can become obsolete by not innovating in response to changing customer demands or new technologies. Levitt's article was widely influential and continues to emphasize the importance of customer-centric marketing and adapting to customers' evolving needs.

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    Fall 2010 Group 8 Marketing Myopia

    Uploaded by

    Manjari Mundanad
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    Theodore Levitt's 1960 article "Marketing Myopia" argues that companies often focus too narrowly on their products instead of their customers' needs, which can lead to decline. Levitt asserts that industries should define themselves based on the customer benefits they provide rather than their products. He uses examples like the petroleum industry to show how companies can become obsolete by not innovating in response to changing customer demands or new technologies. Levitt's article was widely influential and continues to emphasize the importance of customer-centric marketing and adapting to customers' evolving needs.

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    Theodore Levitt's 1960 article "Marketing Myopia" argues that companies often focus too narrowly on their products instead of their customers' needs, which can lead to decline. Levitt asserts that industries should define themselves based on the customer benefits they provide rather than their products. He uses examples like the petroleum industry to show how companies can become obsolete by not innovating in response to changing customer demands or new technologies. Levitt's article was widely influential and continues to emphasize the importance of customer-centric marketing and adapting to customers' evolving needs.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    13 views18 pages

    Fall 2010 Group 8 Marketing Myopia

    Uploaded by

    Manjari Mundanad
    Theodore Levitt's 1960 article "Marketing Myopia" argues that companies often focus too narrowly on their products instead of their customers' needs, which can lead to decline. Levitt asserts that industries should define themselves based on the customer benefits they provide rather than their products. He uses examples like the petroleum industry to show how companies can become obsolete by not innovating in response to changing customer demands or new technologies. Levitt's article was widely influential and continues to emphasize the importance of customer-centric marketing and adapting to customers' evolving needs.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 18

    Marketing Myopia

    by Theodore Levitt
    Group No.8:
    Alex Elwood
    Nikolas Foster
    Blake Overall
    Shaelee Pittenger
    Lorelei Wilson
    What is Myopia
    Nearsightedness--not inherited. It can be
    prevented.
    Short sighted and inward looking approach to
    marketing that focuses on the needs of the firm
    instead of defining the firm and its products in
    terms of the customers' needs and wants.

    Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing-myopia.html#ixzz0yyuoieyC
    Theodore Levitt
    Started a newspaper with Erma Bombeck in
    elementary school
    Served in World War II
    After the war, Ted was a reporter and sportswriter
    for the Dayton Journal Herald
    Received his masters in economics from Ohio
    State
    Worked briefly as a consultant in the oil industry
    Began teaching at Harvard in 1959
    Wrote Marketing Myopia in 1960, most reprints of
    any Harvard Business Review article, 900,000

    Levitt cont.
    Wrote 25 articles for the Harvard Business Review
    Authored 8 books on Marketing
    1983 wrote Globalization of Markets coined the
    word globalization
    In 1985 became the editor of the Harvard Business
    Review, expanded its readership beyond an
    academic journal into a mass market management
    magazine
    Won many awards
    What business are you really in? Marketing
    Myopia
    Approach was not to get approval in research, but to
    have important people in important companies
    (his phrase) to take his ideas and go with them
    There is no such thing as a
    growth industry, what we have
    is growth opportunities.
    -Theodore Levitt
    Guarantee a Self-Deceiving Cycle
    Believe growth is guaranteed by an
    expanding population

    Believe there is no competitive substitutes

    Have too much faith in mass production

    Preoccupation with a product: focus on
    product instead of customer
    Assured Growth by Expansion
    Belief that increases in population and
    affluence ensure growth
    Lack of innovation A common
    characteristic
    Companies focus on efficiency, not innovation
    Petroleum industry
    A prime example of this fallacy
    Reinforces Levitts caution of myopically
    defining ones industry

    No Threat of Obsolescence
    The fallacy of believing competitive
    substitutes dont exist
    Petroleum industry
    A history of obsolete products due to
    competitive substitutes
    Kerosene Lamp
    Kerosene Space Heater

    Mass Production
    Lower products unit costs as output
    increases

    Focus on production, neglect marketing

    Selling is not marketing

    Focus on companys needs, not customers
    needs
    Henry Ford
    Brilliant Marketer Senseless Marketer
    Created a product customers
    needed

    Created a product customers
    could afford

    Created production system to
    fit market needs


    Refused to make cars in any
    other color but black


    Preoccupation with Product
    Industry declines instead of growing

    Example Oil Companies

    Survival entails change
    Creative Destruction
    When something new eliminates something
    old
    Must become innovative reinvent business
    Must change business strategy to survive
    Marketing Myopia Today
    Airline Industry
    - Southwest Airlines vs. American Airlines
    - Customer satisfaction low in this industry
    - Airlines vs. Cable T.V : Tie
    - IRS ranked higher than airlines in customer
    satisfaction


    Marketing Myopia Today
    Technology Industry
    More focused on the customer today than in 1960
    Apple
    E-commerce and E-Business ranked high in
    customer satisfaction report
    http://www.theacsi.org/images/stories/ACSI_TREE_08_10.pdf
    The Pros
    Provided for new thought process

    Customer Centric

    The concept stands the test of time

    Marketing is not selling

    The Cons
    Can a company realistically restructure
    Can go outside the scope of bounded rationality
    (lose reality)
    Static not dynamic
    Does not factor for globalization
    Ecommerce

    Conclusion
    Organizations must learn to think of itself not
    as producing goods or services but as buying
    customers, as doing the things that will make
    people want to do business with it.
    Theodore Levitt
    Reference
    Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. Harvard Business Review,
    38(4), 45-56.
    Lavelle Louise (2006). Theodore Levitt Dead at 81. Business Week.
    Retrieved September 10, 2010 from www.businessweek.com.
    McDermott, Anne (2010). Customer Satisfaction-Airlines Worse
    than IRS, Better than Facebook. FareCompare.com. Retrieved
    September 8, 2010 from
    http://www.farecompare.com/articles/airline-industry-
    news/customer-satisfaction-airlines-irs-facebook/
    Dictionary, (2010). Creative destruction.
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creative+destruction
    Wikipedia, (2010). Creative destruction.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

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