Marketing Myopia Theodore Levitt

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Running head: MARKETING MYOPIA: THEODORE LEVITT

Marketing Myopia: Theodore Levitt

University of Phoenix

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Marketing Myopia

In Theodore Levitt 's article, "Marketing Myopia" (1975), the concept of marketing was widened by examining the history of failed industries doomed to fail eventually. Industries failed to continue their growth not because of a saturated market but failure of proper management. They did not realize the need of expanding into areas in which they were already familiar. Levitt used the railroads as an example because railroads were not focusing on other modes of transportation such as cars and planes, and ships. The railroads only wanted to think of rail transport.
When TV came out, it almost destroyed Hollywood because of their myopic marketing. The major problem with these industries was the issue of product orientation rather than customer-oriented. To survive, their products and services had to be marketed differently according to the customers ' needs. According to Levitt 's research, companies go out of business because they take the customer and market for granted. Businesses must not remain stagnate but must constantly change as the market and its needs change if they want to stay in business.

Levitt argues his first point-of-view on the shadow of obsolescence and that "there is no such thing as a growth industry," but growth opportunities. Levitt termed the stagnation of growth industry as a self-deceiving cycle. Within this cycle, there are warning signs that tell if an industry will fail. The first sign is the population myth; the belief that a rise in population "growth is assured by an expanding and more affluent population" does not necessarily mean a rise in the demand of what a particular industry is offering. If the population increases and more people are buying products or services does not mean the business will sustain
Start building an effective customer-oriented company with human organization and leadership. For an organization to become great, it needs to have a vigorous leader who strives to succeed and has the vision that customers want to follow. To do this, management needs to think of themselves not as merely product producers but as providers of customer-creating value satisfactions. They must embed this philosophy in their corporate culture to stimulate all who work within it, creating a sense and purpose. Levitt states that the first requirement for good leadership is "unless a leader knows where he is going, any road will take him there." From a broad perspective, top management should be able to integrate the production of products with customer needs because the consumers are the lifeline of the company. Without them, there would be no reason to produce any products or services. Levitt uses examples opposite to this perspective to illustrate the type of behavior that creeds itself toward production over marketing, and selling over building consumer relationships. Organizations must consider the reasons consumers would want to purchase their products or services, then find innovative ways to create and deliver these reasons at the time and place the customer wants